Wizard of Ads Monday Morning Memo

How to Advertise in a Recession“If you say that there are elephants flying in the sky, people are not going to believe you. But if you say that there are four hundred and twenty-five elephants flying in the sky, people will probably believe you.” – Gabriel Garcia Marquez,winner of the 1982 Nobel Prize in LiteratureAh, the power of details.Every ad has style and substance, cheese and meat. Most ads are cheese because ad writers are rarely given meat. Style cheese includes layout, angle, tone of voice and hyperbole. Substance meat is provable fact and concrete detail.My success as a writer is due to the fact that I demand meat from the business owners I serve. I'd much rather fight over meat to put in their ads than apologize to them for their ads not working.Style affects how people feel. Cheese.Substance changes what they know. Meat.Is your advertising meaty or cheesy?Here's an example of a 146-word, cheese-filled ad:Pearls have always been off-white, but not anymore! [STORE] has just received a shipment of colored freshwater pearls. We have a whole panorama of colors to choose from! Come and see these wonderful new fashion items that have arrived just in time for the Spring Season. Come early and shop while the selection is best. Don't be left out in the cold! Step into Spring with a spring in your step with fashionable, colored freshwater pearls. You’ll always find the newest thing in cutting-edge fashion at [STORE] where we’ve been serving the good people of [TOWN] since [YEAR.] Colored pearls are hot! Colored pearls are cool. And you won't believe the price. Get yours before they’re all gone at [STORE] where you can see them from 9AM to 6:30PM Monday through Saturday. Colored, freshwater pearls, exclusively at [STORE, LOCATION] or online at [WEBSITE.COM] or call 555-5555.Here's another 146-word ad, but with accelerated style and a few chunks of meat:MALE: When a painting has gentle colors and a soft glow, it’s usually a watercolor. I love watercolors. I like their optimism. I like the way they make me feel. So when I saw the Watercolor Pearls from the town of Wen-chow on the coast of the East China Sea, I ordered a hundred strands for the women of [TOWN].FEMALE: Wait till you see the colors!MALE: Silky black,FEMALE: Blushing pink,MALE: Supple green,FEMALE: Wet blueMALE: Smooth whiteFEMALE: Moonglow silverMALE: Translucent apricotFEMALE: Dripping chocolateMALE: Each strand is 16 inches long.FEMALE: Some strands are all one color.MALE: Others are multiple colors, a pastel rainbow of freshwater pearls.FEMALE: At just 79 dollars a strand, 100 strands won’t last long.MALE: And the East China Sea is a loooooong way from here.FEMALE: Take a look right now at ____________.comMALE: Or try them on up-close and personal at [LOCATION.]FEMALE: Watercolor pearls, exclusively at [STORE.]Meat chunks:1. the town of Wen-chow2. a hundred strands3. black, pink, green, blue, white, silver, apricot, chocolate4. Some strands are all one color5. Others are multiple colors6. 16 inches long7. 79 dollars a strand.8. East China SeaSpecifics are more powerful than generalities, even when those specifics merely accelerate your style:1. Rainbow is more specific than panorama and is therefore more easily visualized.2. In his first appearance, the MALE voice says “…make me feel.”3. Each specific color name is then accelerated by the use of a modifier that might also describe a woman's skin: gentle, soft, silky, supple, wet, smooth, translucent, dripping.4. And most of those tactile words follow the phrase, “the women of [TOWN].”Any questions?Roy H. Williams

As We Look at the Business Climate of 2009:A new generation of entrepreneurs is emerging from the shadows. None of these is well funded but they are focused, relevant, and in step with the public. Some of them will grow to become business icons by mid-2012. (Three and a half years from now I’ll give you a hyperlink back to this column so that you can see how right I was.)Yes, I know that sounded horribly egotistical.The air is cold, the sky is clear, these are my trend predictions:Cheap Thrills“If it feels good, do it.”Sales of alcohol, movie tickets and ice cream will increase. This happens during every recession. How might you offer your customer an altered consciousness, an alternative reality, an escape from the merely mundane? Think about it.Repair Instead of Replace“Instead of buying a new one, I’ll hold on to the one I’ve got.”Sellers of new houses, new cars, clothing and jewelry are going to have to get creative. Repair businesses will trend magically upward. Expensive items will find their way to eBay as we liquidate the luxuries we bought in better days. Resale shops will appear in nicer parts of town. How might your business participate in this trend?Tightrope Budgeting“Should I shepherd my resources or push harder than ever?”Market share is up for grabs because your competitors have slashed their ad budgets. Should you hunker down and try to hang on, or push harder than ever while your competitors hibernate? Some businesses will quit advertising and go broke as a direct result. Other businesses will advertise aggressively and go broke because they lacked financial staying power. Your correct course of action depends on your competitive environment. Do you know how to read your competitive environment or do you need help?Fewer Competitors“If the economy stays tough and fewer businesses occupy my category, won’t that leave more for me?” (1.) What was the sales volume of the failed competitor? (2.) How much has your category shrunk? If the competitor’s volume exceeded the shrinkage of your category, you might see some benefit. But if your competitor was a minor player, the shrinkage of your category will erase any good you might have experienced. You’ll get a larger slice, but of a smaller pie.Media Makeover“I walk to the end of the driveway each morning to retrieve a newspaper telling me things I’ve known for 24 hours.” Very few newspapers are healthy. The New York Times, that standard bearer of journalism, would have collapsed but for last week’s infusion of $250 million by Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim. With that newspaper’s $1 billion in debt recently reduced to junk-bond status and only $46 million in cash reserves, the Times would have failed in May, 2009. In the past, “columnists” and “reporters” were merely people who had access to a publishing pipeline. But in an Internet-connected world, isn’t every blogger both columnist and reporter? Last week MSNBC.com said, “Got some good photos of the inauguration? Send them to us.” How many more months will pass before newspapers are published digitally and round-the-clock from volunteer reports submitted from around the world?Websites are EssentialHillary Clinton and John McCain underestimated the power of the Internet. Barack Obama did not. Now tell the truth, don’t be embarrassed: Was your website designed by an acquaintance who “is really good with computers?” Someone who “knows all about the internet?” Then why isn’t it doing more for you? This is the year to get serious about your website. Your webmaster is learning by trial and error. You should buy him or her some expert guidance.You’re About to Read an Ad:Call to Action, a book about the internet published by Wizard Academy Press, became a New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestseller in 2005. It was the first book ever to reach bestseller status without brick-and-mortar distribution. Call to Action by Bryan and Jeffrey Eisenberg is a landmark in the publishing hall of fame. Its sequel, Waiting for Your Cat to Bark? hit all four bestseller lists, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, USA Today and BusinessWeek.The world’s most successful online companies pay the Eisenberg brothers lavishly for their advice. Their consulting company, Future Now, is currently traded on NASDAQ.And they were students at Wizard Academy long before they became famous.Would you like Bryan and Jeffrey Eisenberg to:1. monitor your website 24/72. analyze the actions of all your online visitors, and then3. suggest specific changes you should make to your website?This new service from Future Now is available for as little as $1,000/mo. Detailed feedback with specific recommendations for you to implement. Tested, proven, productive. No more trial-and-error.Roy H. Williams

Change is inevitable. Growth is optional. *We’re living in a time of tumultuous change.A misinformed president declares a war. The value of homes – which were never supposed to fall – fell. The SEC can’t make Wall Street color between the lines and 700 billion dollars goes missing. A 50 billion-dollar Ponzi scheme is perpetrated by one of the most respected men on Wall Street. A governor tries to sell a seat in the Senate. I saw gasoline sell for a dollar a quart and watched General Motors become insolvent.But I’m not worried. I was born in a briar patch.Pennie and I began our lives together during the term of another president who wasn’t quite up to the job.It’s 1976. Mortgage interest rates are 18 percent and jobs are scarce. If you see a line of cars at a gas station, get in it. Gas stations don’t always have gas. The middle-eastern boogeyman of that era, the Ayatollah Khomeini, brazenly invades a U.S. embassy and kidnaps 52 U.S. diplomats. Newscasters remind us nightly of our shame. When we send our best and brightest soldiers to rescue our diplomats, we crash two of our aircraft, eight soldiers die and we return home empty-handed. The Ayatollah holds us hostage for 444 days.“Elected largely on his promise to never lie to the American people, Carter soon seemed out of place in the vastness of the presidency. Events conspired to further impede his progress: rising energy costs, high unemployment, Americans held hostage in Iran, Soviets in Afghanistan. A man of peace who took pride in bringing together age-old antagonists, Carter was finally viewed by his countrymen as lacking presidential stature.” – American Experience, PBSAnd the whole time, it seems the only thing we needed was a head cheerleader with a more beautiful dream. Ronald Reagan took office with a sparkling smile. “Things are fine. Expand your business. All is well. Go out to dinner. Life is good.” And we believed him.Economy rebounded, cold war ended, Mary Lou Retton vaulted a perfect 10 and the Berlin Wall came tumbling down.Barack Obama has a good smile, too. I’m keeping my fingers crossed.In defiance of the current recession, Wizard Academy is moving forward with the construction of its new classroom tower. Perhaps we’re being foolish. Maybe the right thing would be to hunker down and cover our heads with our hands. But did you ever notice how “hunker” sounds like clunker, junker, lunker and dunker? I prefer “dream,” as in team, gleam in the eye, beaming smile and cream of the crop.“All men dream, but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake in the day to find that it was vanity: but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act their dream with open eyes, to make it possible.” – T. E. Lawrence (of Arabia)Hunker down or dream. It's your call.The 7 Steps to Hunkering Down:1. Stay scared. Call it “street smart.”2. Cultivate cynicism. Call it “straight talk.”3. Praise pessimism. Call it a “reality check.”4. Believe you are wiser than everyone else.5. Feel secretly superior.6. Take no action that might improve your condition.7. Crow “I told you so” when things get worse.The 7 Steps to Pursuing Your Dream:1. Know what you're trying to make happen.2. Expect good things to happen for you.3. Plant seeds of good things daily.4. Trust that some of your seeds will grow.5. Measure success by your own criteria.6. Make progress daily without fail.7. Believe in the power of the Elbs. (Exponential Little Bits)Do you believe in your dream, or do you think it's only a fantasy?Moving forward with just a thousand dollars:I showed today's memo to 5 of my most successful friends and said, “Talk is cheap and I don't want to be seen as one of those pollyanna happy-talk motivational goobers without substance. Action makes things happen, but not everyone is free to attend classes at Wizard Academy. If a business person is ready to begin taking action, what would you be willing to do for just a thousand dollars to help them make progress toward their goal?” I was blown away by their generous offers.Would you like to see what they said they'd be willing to do?Good thingshappen to dreamerswho remain standingwith open eyes.Stand up.Roy H. Williams

Turn It Upside Down. Do It Backwards.TRIZ is the Russian acronym for a string of words that mean “Theory of Inventive Problem Solving,” an innovation matrix of the late Genrich Altshuller, a Soviet scientist who proved:1. there are only about 1,500 basic problems in life and2. implementing one or more of 40 archetypal answers can solve each of these problems. These “archetypal answers” are known as the 40 Principles of TRIZ.Mark Fox is1. a rocket scientist,2. the youngest Chief Engineer in the history of the Space Shuttle project, and3. a director on the board of Wizard Academy.Mark co-teaches a class with me called DaVinci and the 40 Answers in which we teach students how to use the Principles of TRIZ as lenses that allow them to see their limiting factors from a new perspective.New perspectives yield new answers.New answers produce new outcomes.Today we’ll aim one of these Principles at a common problem:“How can I get more customers?”Would you like to hear an innovative new answer to that question?I’ve selected Principle 13, “Do It Backwards,” to be our solution stimulator. But before we can solve the problem backwards, we must first understand how the question is usually solved.QUESTION“How can I get more customers?”USUAL ANSWERClassic marketing revolves around the question, “Who is your customer?” Marketers study surveys, evaluate data and observe customer characteristics in the hope of more narrowly defining your “core customer” and thereby increasing your ability to more efficiently target these people. The assumption is that if you can clearly identify who is buying from you, you can find efficient ways of reaching out to other people just like them.BACKWARDS ANSWERInstead of looking at who you’re getting and why, take a look at who you’re not getting and why you’re not getting them.1.   Who isn’t coming to you?2.   Why are these people not coming to you?3.   Are you prepared to broaden your message to appeal to people who haven’t been attracted to you in the past?Gosh. That little window of insight reveals a whole new horizon of possibilities, doesn’t it?The marketplace pie is shrinking for most business categories.If, in fact, fewer customers spend fewer dollars in your category in 2009 than they did in 2008, doesn’t it make sense that you enact a plan to increase the size of your slice?Wizard Academycame into beingfor such a time as this.Our mission: to help people accomplish their dreams.What’s yours?Roy H. Williams

Tiny, Reliable Indicators are Clockwork AngelsA successful consultant uses small indicators to make big decisions. If he explains his methods to data-worshippers, he sounds like an idiot. When it later turns out that he was right, the doubters claim he was lucky, saying, “You can’t possibly extrapolate that outcome from that data.”Consider the following:A large group of 4-year old children are led into a room, one at a time. The room is equipped with a two-way mirror. Each child is seated and given a marshmallow. “You can eat the marshmallow right now if you want. But if you wait until I come back to eat your marshmallow, I’ll give you a second marshmallow to go with it.” The giver of marshmallows then leaves the child alone in the room.Is there anything we could learn from such a test? Could it tell us anything important about a child’s future?One third of the children ate the marshmallow immediately.One third held out for a short time, then ate the marshmallow.One third waited 15 to 20 minutes until the giver of marshmallows returned with the promised, second marshmallow.Small indicators are valuable to a savvy consultant, just as they were valuable to Walter Mischel*, a scientist at Stanford 40 years ago.Fourteen years later, at the age of eighteen, each of the original 216 children was located. Those who didn’t eat the marshmallow scored an average of 210 points higher on the SAT (610 verbal and 652 math versus 524 verbal and 528 math.)At age 40, the group that didn’t eat their marshmallows had more successful marriages, higher incomes, greater career satisfaction and better health than the marshmallow eaters.   The 4 year-old who eats the marshmallow is oriented toward the present.The 4 year-old who waits is oriented toward the future.Yes, we can learn big things from small indicators.Six years ago I sent you a Monday Morning Memo that linked your ability to accumulate wealth to your orientation toward the future. Do you remember it?2009 is going to be a year of upheaval.Will you be oriented toward the future?Or are you trapped in the present?Before you eat that marshmallow, let’s talk.Roy H. Williams

Albert Schweitzer. In background, clockwise from lower left: Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Ann Radcliffe, Horace Mann, J.M. Barrie, Marian Wright Edelman, Anne FrankAlbert Schweitzer was a musician and physician who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1952. This is the message he left for us when he died: “I don't know what your destiny will be, but one thing I do know: the only ones among you who will be really happy are those who have sought and found how to serve.”Now lest you think I’ve gone all touchy-feely, riding my unicorn over the rainbow as I sprinkle sparklies on the world below, I'll poke you with the pointed advice of Ann Radcliffe: “One act of beneficence, one act of real usefulness, is worth all the abstract sentiment in the world.” In other words, “No one wants to hear what you believe. We’re watching. Show us.”You go, Ann.Talk is cheap. Beautiful dreams are for rainbow riders. Small actions, relentless actions, committed actions are the signature of people who change the world.Are you a world changer?“The first duty of a human being is to assume the right functional relationship to society – more briefly, to find your real job, and do it.” – Charlotte Perkins GilmanHave you found your real job? Are you doing it?No? (Don’t worry, if you’re not yet sure of your real job, Sid Lloyd will help you find it on March 13.)“You're not obligated to win. You're obligated to keep trying to do the best you can every day. A lot of people are waiting for Martin Luther King or Mahatma Gandhi to come back – but they are gone. We are it. It is up to us. It is up to you.” – Marian Wright EdelmanIn the spirit of Marian Edelman, Horace Mann challenged the 1859 graduating class of Antioch University thusly: “Be ashamed to die until you have won some victory for humanity.”“Be ashamed to die.” It takes real teeth to say things like that. Horace had him some teeth.Remember the happiness promised to us by Albert Schweitzer? Jimmy James Barrie gave us Peter Pan, then said, “Those who bring sunshine into the lives of others, cannot keep it from themselves.” I'm thinking he was right.I have confidence in the words of these 7 worthies because they agree with the Jewish rabbi we quoted last week. “Anyone who seeks his own happiness will not find it. But those who seek the happiness of others will find happiness in all they do.” – a transliteration of the words of Jesus from Mathew 16Hiding for her life in an attic, the irrepressible Anne Frank said, “How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.”This was a buoyant attitude for a teenage girl hiding in an attic. But you're not hiding in an attic. You’re staring into the mirror of a brand new year, full of possibilities.Look into the eyes of that mirror.Who will you be in 2009?Roy H. Williams

First it gets dark, then the air slaps you from every direction and the ocean falls from the sky. Laws of gravity have been repealed. Your thoughts reach up like flowers for sunlight but the sun cannot be found.I am darkness. I am the storm. And the witch rides her broomstick across my sky and is silhouetted against the moon. Swirling at your feet is the storm fear, icy poverty in iron handcuffs stirred by the witch’s broom.I’ve been thinking a lot about storms of late; 2009 will be a stormy year.And growing stronger by the hour is the devil witch that stirs her icy brew. Turn on your television and take a sip and feel your blood run cold.But I bring you a different sort of news:The opposite of life isn’t death. The opposite of life is fear.A young rabbi once said, “Life isn’t about waiting for the storm to pass. It’s about learning to dance in the rain.”Do you want to learn to dance? Dancing is easy when you know your life’s purpose. Do you know yours? If not, Sid Lloyd can help you find it.Wizard Academy exists to help people accomplish what they set out to do. We are the strangers you meet in the forest, the ones who give you what you need to continue your quest. We show you the pathway that leads to your prize.That first step is always a big one. The student looks down at their feet, then over at us as they realize, “I’m really going to do this, aren’t I?”And thus begins the only dance that will carry you happily through the rain.James Thurber said, “All men should strive to learn before they die, what they are running from, and to, and why.” Do you want to know the answers to Thurber’s questions?Let me be the stranger in the forest who gives you what you need. Are you ready to receive it?These 4 Common Fears are theIngredients in the Witch’s Brew:1. Fear of Decision.ANTIDOTE: Knowledge of Purpose“Don't ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.” – Howard ThurmanMark Twain said it more sharply: “I can teach anybody how to get what they want out of life. The problem is that I can't find anybody who can tell me what they want.”If Mark Twain were alive today he would teach at Wizard Academy. In Twain’s absence, we bring you Sid Lloyd.2. Fear of StruggleANTIDOTE: Commitment“Commitment means that it is possible for a man to yield the nerve center of his consent to a purpose or cause, a movement or an ideal, which may be more important to him than whether he lives or dies.” – Howard ThurmanShow me a person without commitment and I’ll show you a person bored out of their wits. “I have noticed that there is no dissatisfaction like that of the rich. Feed a man, clothe him, put him in a good house, and he will die of despair.” – John SteinbeckMost people think commitment is a consequence of passion. But it’s the other way around. Passion is a product of commitment. If your life is without passion, make a commitment.“When I hear somebody sigh that life is hard, I am always tempted to ask, 'Compared to what?'” – Sydney J. Harris    3. Fear of FailureANTIDOTE: Laughter and a Sense of Wonder“If a child is to keep alive his inborn sense of wonder… he needs the companionship of at least one adult who can share it, rediscovering with him the joy, excitement, and mystery of the world we live in.” – Rachel Carson    “To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people just exist, that is all.” – Oscar Wilde    “Do not take life too seriously – you will never get out of it alive.” – Elbert Hubbard“But why think about that when all the golden land's ahead of you and all kinds of unforeseen events wait lurking to surprise you and make you glad you're alive to see?” – Jack Kerouac    4. Fear of DeathANTIDOTE: Celebrating the Ordinary“Don't be afraid your life will end; be afraid that it will never begin.” – Grace Hansen“It is often said that before you die your life passes before your eyes. It is in fact true. It's called living.” – Terry Pratchett“And here's a secret I learned six summers ago, lying in a ditch beside the road, covered in my own blood and thinking I was going to die: you go out broke. Everything's on loan, anyway. You're not an owner, you're only a steward. So pass some of it on.” – author Stephen King, speaking to the graduating class of the University of Maine, May 7, 2005The young rabbi who spoke about dancing in the rain originally said it this way,“I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble (storms.) But be of good cheer; (learn to dance in the rain,) for I have overcome the world.”Read it for yourself in the sixteenth chapter of John.Merry Christmas,Roy H. Williams

Run the following ad in any newspaper:2006 Honda Civic DX 4dr, White, 63,000 miles, $8,100. Call 555-1212These are the questions you’ll be asked by nearly half your callers:“What year is that Honda Civic? Is it a 2-door or 4-door? What color? How many miles on it? How much are you asking?”I know this because I bought and sold an average of 3 cars a month for the first several years Pennie and I were married. I’ve answered these questions many hundreds of times and in every instance the information was in the newspaper ad.I always wanted to ask, “Where did you get this phone number?”Then a few years ago Dr. Richard D. Grant taught me the difference between introverts and extraverts.Introversion and extraversion don't refer to shyness and boldness. They refer only to how you charge your emotional batteries. Introverts gain energy from internal contemplation, centering, and quiet time. Extraverts gain energy from external people, places, and things.I’m an introvert. Those car questions were asked by extraverts. Contrary to what introverts like to think, extraverts aren’t stupid. They simply prefer the spoken word to the written.Books are written for introverts. Audiobooks are recorded for extraverts.Introverts rarely say what they are thinking.They say only what they have thought. Introverts think to talk.Extraverts talk to think.When introverts get stuck, they close the door, turn off the radio, take the phone off the hook and go deep inside themselves to find the answer. When extraverts get stuck they strike up a conversation with someone. This gets the mental flywheel spinning again and sure enough, within moments, out pops an idea. Extraverts get their best ideas during conversation.Although nearly half our population is introverted, the US maintains a strongly extraverted social etiquette:Focus groups measure the opinions of extraverts.Churches plan social events for extraverts.Companies hand out promotions to extravertsand sales trainers teach us how to sell to extraverts. Do you remember the old sales adage, “close early, close hard and close often?” This may be a sure way to keep your extraverted customer engaged in conversation and “flush out” their true objection, but you’ll just as surely alienate your introverted customers. Good luck with that.Extraverts think introverts are socially inept.Introverts think extraverts are noisy.What extraverts call “reaching out to someone,” introverts call an invasion of privacy. Extraverts prefer to work in teams. Introverts do their best work alone.Given their polar opposite preferences, can introverts and extraverts work well together, become partners, be happily married?Absolutely.The key to showing courtesy to an extravert is to listen to them more than you think is necessary. Maintain eye contact, nod your head and smile.The key to showing courtesy to an introvert is to give them time and space for reflection and processing. Don’t bombard them with questions or subject them to a barrage of jabber when they’re “all peopled out.” Give them an uninterrupted hour to read the mail and they’ll soon be ready to hear about your day.Do it however works best for you,but keep your emotional batteries charged.Happy Holidays.Roy H. Williams

Ready to Play Leapfrog?The coming year will be fun, adventure-filled and profitable for people who have their wits about them.A number of small business owners are positioning themselves to overtake their much larger rivals.Will one of these companies be yours?Not many years ago, General Motors and Circuit City were the dominant players in their categories. Today they’re both on their knees, having made the same mistakes:1. They took their fingers off the pulse of the customer.When you believe your marketing pipeline will allow you to dictate what the customer will buy, you’re in danger of being leapfrogged. In 1960, General Motors sold nearly 60 percent of all new cars. Today, even though Chevrolet maintains 4,200 dealerships, Toyota sells more cars than all 5 GM brands combined through just 1,400 locations. LESSON: Having the right product is more important than heritage and convenience.2. They quit taking risks.When companies achieve success, they usually quit innovating and become guardians of the status quo. But yesterday’s perfect processes are obsolete tomorrow. Vinyl records were replaced by 8-track tapes. 8-tracks were replaced by cassettes. Cassettes were replaced by CDs. And now CD’s are being replaced by MP3 players. The same is happening with business practices. LESSON: Success, like failure, is a temporary condition. Never assume you've arrived.The leaders are going into hunker-down mode. They’re cutting back their advertising, assuming that everyone else will cut back as well.When a leapfrogger sees a leader’s brake lights, he hits the accelerator. Are you beginning to see what I meant when I said, “fun, adventure-filled and profitable?”Here are the trends to watch in 2009:1. Frivolous purchases are being delayed.We’re wearing our clothes longer and keeping the cars we’ve got. We'll buy what we need, but only after asking whether we really need it.2. We're buying fewer things, but better things.More attention is being paid to quality. Only the poorest are choosing by price alone. Information is king. Details are power. This is good news for makers of better products.3. “Sustainable” is a concept that will grow in power for at least 10 years.The lifestyle of the 80's and 90's was “upwardly mobile” and its leaders were marked by “conspicuous consumption.” But the chosen lifestyle of the next generation will be “sustainable,” meaning that we'll strive to live within our means and embrace practices that are environmentally responsible.Want to be a leapfrogger?Become one of the Magnificent Seven. I'll see you when you arrive on campus.Roy H. Williams

Chapter six in John’s story about the life of Jesus tells us how he fed 5,000 people with 5 loaves and 2 small fishes.I have no problem reconciling God and science, so the miracle bit doesn’t stumble me in the least. The thing that fascinates me – the piece I woke up thinking about – is what Jesus said when the meal was over. “Gather up the fragments that remain, that nothing be lost.”Consider. This was a person of unlimited resources, a man who could create abundance from nothingness, yet he said to his followers, “Gather up the fragments.”Have you ever stopped to “gather up the fragments” of your life?We find ourselves at Thanksgiving and Christmas confronted with life-fragments we’ve been trying hard to forget. Encounters with uncomfortable relatives bring sharp fragments to the surface. Memories of past failures and embarrassments, hard times and weird relationships emerge from conversations with people who remember us differently than we are today. And then we have to visit places we’ve been trying to forget and recall events from which we’re still recovering.Am I the only person who goes into the holiday season with mixed emotions?“Gather up the fragments.”Unresolved fragments are shrapnel, cutting us deeply.Handled fragments are sandpaper, wearing off our rough edges.Softened fragments are building blocks, giving us insights to get things done.Celebrated fragments are nutrition, remembering past miracles in our lives.Bright mosaics are made from gathered fragments.Broken. Colorful. Unique.Just like the pattern of your life.Negotiate your broken places.They allow for new connections.Appreciate the weirdness of your past.It adds color to your future.Celebrate your personal heritage.It beats the hell out of whining.Happy Holidays.Roy H. Williams

Tom Wanek believes credibility can be “purchased” by risking one or more of six currencies. The more you put at risk, the more believable your message.Currencies that Buy Credibility:1. Material WealthOf the six currencies, we see material wealth risked most frequently in money-back guarantees and statements like, “Find a lower price anywhere and we’ll refund the difference plus 10 percent.” Can you think of a better way to increase credibility by increasing the customer’s perception of your risk?2. Time & Energy   Are you in a business that provides an in-home service? Imagine the power of an ad that says, “If we’re not there when we promised, we do the job for free. Unlike other companies, we would never waste your time, then ask you to pay for ours.” Variations of this classic example of risking time and energy to increase credibility have been used by the Clockworks group to build a number of America’s most successful in-home service franchises. How else might you risk time and energy to increase credibility?3. OpportunityLadies, when a man claims to love you but continues to date other women, is his statement credible? A self-imposed restriction on opportunity – dating you exclusively – adds credibility to his statement, does it not? Likewise, the manufacturer who gives access to just one retailer in an area is perceived as committed to that retailer’s success. Is there a way your business might risk opportunity to strengthen credibility?4. Power & ControlThe original purpose of Amazon.com was to sell books. But by choosing to allow visitors to write negative reviews, they increased the credibility of the positive reviews and quickly became one of the internet giants. Likewise, your company can gain power by giving it away and you can increase your credibility by giving up control. How many ways might you do this?5. Reputation & PrestigeIn a report released two weeks ago by CNN/Opinion Research, George W. Bush had an approval rating of just 24 percent. In a press conference held the following week, the President said he regretted saying he wanted Osama bin Laden “dead or alive” and that he had urged the Iraqi insurgents in 2003, “bring ‘em on.” He said he was sorry such language made the world believe he was “not a man of peace.” By putting his prestige at risk and eating a slice of humble pie, George W. Bush regained some of his lost credibility, don’t you think?6. Safety and Well-BeingYou're 12 years old. Your stepfather says he loves you as much as if you were his own, but you’re not sure you believe him. But when you fall through the ice while skating on a frozen lake your stepfather dives through the hole into the freezing water to rescue you. Do you believe him now? The president of Lifelock, an identity-theft protection program, runs ads that say, “My name is Todd Davis. My social security number is 457-55-5462. So why publish my social security number? Because I’m absolutely confident LifeLock is protecting my good name and personal information, just like it will yours. And we guarantee our service up to $1 million dollars.” By risking his personal well-being through the publication of his Social Security number and risking his company’s material wealth by reimbursing up to $1 million in identity-theft losses, Todd Davis has built Lifelock into the dominant player in its category. Are you beginning to see how embracing risk increases credibility?Fight the Big Boys and Win is a class taught by Tom Wanek, the discoverer of the Six Currencies of Credibility, and Mike Dandridge, the director of The American Small Business Peer Groups, a division of Wizard of Ads, Inc.If you own a business, this 2-day class is how you should begin 2009.We're looking at a brand new day.Are you up for it?Roy H. Williams

Most women can tell at least one funny story about a tragic first date. In most of these stories, a misguided man spends the entire evening saying,“Here's an example of how wonderful I am…”“Let me tell you what I can do…”“…and that's what makes me special.”Although we’re rarely drawn to people who begin all their sentences with “I,” “Me,” and “My,” this first-person perspective remains central to mainstream advertising.And it’s why most Americans detest mainstream advertising.“At [name of company,] we…”“Voted the number one…”“Why settle for second best?”This outdated language of self-promotion is known as “AdSpeak.”The new language of marketing is the language of Intimacy. Connectedness. Shared values. The sound of one friend talking to another. Intimate ads are believable because they confirm what the customer already knows. The fact that the advertiser knows it as well – and is willing to admit it – is what surprises and impresses the customer. Click. Connection.How to Avoid “AdSpeak” in Your Ads.1. Limit self-reference. Reduce the number of times you refer to your company or your product in your ads. (New York Times bestselling authors Jeffrey and Bryan Eisenberg offer a free, online analysis of ad copy at FutureNowInc.com. Their “We-We Calculator” scores ad copy instantly. Just copy and paste your ad into the text-block and the software does the rest.2. Don’t say it. Lead the customer to say it. Instead of saying, “We’re honest,” say something that only an honest person would say. Let the customer respond, “Wow. That’s honest.”3. Admit the downside. It makes the upside easier to believe. Imagine the impact of a jeweler saying, “A diamond is just a symbol. The important thing is not to forget what it symbolizes.”A behavioral scientist named Desmond Morris wondered why some couples stayed together for a lifetime while other couples divorced. What he found was that couples who stayed together had usually followed similar progressions of intimacy, allowing sufficient time before advancing to the next stage. His theory was that this allowed the couple to more deeply bond during the courtship phase of the relationship. Couples who rushed through these “stages of intimacy” usually didn't form as strong a bond and were far more likely to divorce.WHAT THIS MEANS TO BUSINESS:Customer courtship should begin long before your customer is in the market for what you sell. The customer won “quick and easy” will be lost just as quickly and easily.Let’s look at the 12 Stages of Intimacyas they relate to business:1. Eye to Body* general awareness.In Business: Name Recognition.2. Eye to Eye* each person knows the other has seen them.In Business: Targeted advertising is purchased to reach the customer.3. Voice to Voice* conversation. Can be one sided, or a dialogue.In Business: Your ads are read or heard by the customer.4. Hand to Hand* holding hands. Acknowledgement of possible relationship.In Business: the customer considers visiting your place of business.5. Arm to Shoulder* closer contact than holding hands.In Business: contact is made in person or by phone.6. Arm to Waist* indicates a growing familiarity and comfort level in the relationship.In Business: second contact, a repeat visit7. Mouth to Mouth* Kissing.In Business: a purchase is made8. Hand to Head* Touching a person’s head is highly intimate, a sign of deepening trust.In Business: contact through social media – MySpace, Facebook, Youtube, Blogs9. Hand to Body* This is the stage where foreplay begins.In Business: a repeat purchase. This person is becoming a real customer.10. Mouth to Breast* Foreplay continues, obviously.In Business: the customer begins to tell their friends about you. Referrals.11. Hand to GenitalsIn Business: the customer repeatedly sends business to you.12. SexIn Business: the customer becomes an insider, a trusted ally.The progression of courtship through these stages must be voluntary by both parties. Push too far, too fast, and you’re guilty of assault.A single stage may occasionally be skipped, but not more than one. You may go directly from stage 4 to 6, but not directly from 4 to 7. You might move from stage 7 directly to 9, but not from stage 7 to 10.If more than a single step is skipped, the recipient of your affection will feel rushed, hustled and pushed.Knock, knock. A salesman stands on the doorstep of your home, uninvited. He has skipped 4 stages and gone directly to stage 5. How rude!You’ve made your first purchase from a store (stage 7.) Now they’re leaping past 3 stages to offer you a reward for sending in your friends (stages 10-11.) How forward!The natural progression of human intimacy is well documented and easily observed. It is hardwired into our cultural DNA. Remember, the strongest relationships are those that allow sufficient time for each stage. The customer who moves quickly from first contact to first purchase is not

Peter Wenders chooses stories and illustrations for children’s books.It’s 1954, and today is a day like any other; Wenders sits innocently in his office, believing that people are who they claim to be.And he assumes they’ll do what they say they’ll do.But today a man with round glasses and a large nose walks into his office wearing an overcoat and a fedora. The man offers his hand, “Hello, my name is Harris Burdick.”Wenders rises to his feet and shakes the hand. “Peter Wenders.”“I’ve written 14 stories and drawn multiple illustrations for each. Would you be willing to take a look?”“That depends,” says Wenders, “on what your stories are about.” Wordlessly, Burdick hands Wenders an illustration titled The Seven Chairs.  The caption beneath it reads, “The fifth one ended up in France.” Wenders looks at Burdick with a smiling look of surprise.Burdick hands him another image. Then another. And another. One for each story. Fourteen in all.“Yes! Yes! I’d be delighted to read your stories. Can you bring them in tomorrow?”Burdick says he’ll be back, then reaches out to retrieve his 14 illustrations.Pulling back a little, Wenders says, “Leave these with me, won’t you? I’d like to show them to my colleagues.” And with a quick smile, a nod, and a tip of his hat, Burdick was gone.And was never seen again.Wenders searched for Burdick more than 20 years, but no trace was found. If not for those 14 images, Wenders might have become convinced it was all just a false memory.But what talent Burdick had!In 1982, Peter Wenders, now 73 years old, met another gifted children’s author. “Sit down, Chris. I want to show you something.”Chris Van Allsbury dropped into an old leather chair in Wenders’ living room. A minute later Wenders came in with a dusty cardboard box. “What do you think of these?”Wenders saw the same smiling look of surprise on the face of Chis Van Allsbury that Harris Burdick had seen on Wenders’ face 28 years earlier.Startled by the images and spellbound by the story of Wenders’ fruitless search for Burdick, Chris Van Allsbury said, “Mr. Wenders, we have to publish these. The images, the titles, the captions! This man deserves to be remembered.”And that’s the story of a thin book titled, The Mysteries of Harris Burdick. Every home should have a copy.Like Peter Wenders, I, too, have met men and women whose stories deserve to be remembered. And like Chris Van Allsbury, I’ve said, “We have to publish these.”These special moments have resulted in Accidental Magic, People Stories, and now, just in time for Christmas, Dreams.Wizard Academy, high on a plateau at the southern edge of Austin, Texas, is an international gathering place for the talented, the brilliant, the unusual and the different.If Harris Burdick is alive, he’ll find his way to Wizard Academy.I know he will.Roy H. Williams

Humility and Simplicity are the New FrontierAmericans have always treasured independence and achievement. We’ve seen ourselves as fighters who stood tall after every victory, chin up, chest out, shoulders back. And to the victor go the spoils, right? Big houses, big cars, lavish vacations; these were the American dream.But we recently learned that America is not an only child. There is no American economy or American environment separate from the rest of the world. The wind blowing across Kansas today blew yesterday through Mongolia.Take a breath of Mongolian air. Clear your thoughts. Smile into the light. This story has a happy ending:We’re about to discover the joys of humility and simplicity. Smaller houses, smaller cars, a simpler lifestyle. We may even become the “kinder, gentler nation” Ronald Reagan's vice president believed we could be. (From the Republican National Convention acceptance address of George H. W. Bush, August 18, 1988.)Here’s an email I received last week from a friend who runs a hedge fund:This meltdown in our financial markets has been horrific. A friend of mine said, “The French invented democracy, the Americans perfected it and the CDOs killed it.”And that's how I feel. Our time as a nation has past and history will not be kind to us. The future now belongs to someone else, probably China. We privatize profits and then screw the tax payers with a bailout. Our corrupt politicians permitted an unregulated monster to grow out of control until it almost destroyed our financial system. So while Wall Street and Washington lined their pockets with cash, the American people got drunk on spending and spending and spending all the money they didn't have. Now those that enjoyed leverage are fucked, forever. Most people were broke to begin with, now they're really broke. Deleveraging hurts, ouch.Warren Buffet once said the only way to go broke is on borrowed money.For those that have heard your lesson on the pendulum of history, it would be an interesting time to have you revisit that lesson in light of current events. Thank you for your memos each week and for your perspective.Although I disagree with my friend’s statement that “the future now belongs to someone else,” I do understand how he feels. (My belief is that no one else can own your future. Your past and your future belong solely to you whether you take responsibility for them or not.)I first presented Society’s 40-year Pendulum in Stockholm, Sweden, in January, 2004. Since then, more than 100 trade associations and state governments have asked me to help them better understand the rumblings of societal change they feel beneath their feet. Perhaps you've felt it, too.Ten completed social cycles – 400 years of history – seem to indicate that in the 6 years following a 40-year tipping point, the majority of older consumers will choose to follow the younger consumers’ lead. Societal change during the next 34 years seems subtle and incremental when compared to the pace of change during the 6-year transition.The last tipping point occurred in 2003. You may recall that I wrote to you about it in December of that year. The memo was titled 1963 All Over Again:Forty years is how long a true ‘generation’ stays in power, during which time social change will be evolutionary, rather than revolutionary. But in the waning years of each generation, ‘alpha voices’ ring out as prophets in the wilderness, providing a glimpse of the new generation that will soon emerge like a baby chick struggling to break out of its shell.Baby Boomer heroes were always bigger than life, perfect icons, brash and beautiful: Muhammad Ali… Elvis… James Bond. But the emerging generation holds a different view of what makes a hero.Boomers rejected Conformity and their attitude swept the land, changing even the mindset of their fuddy-duddy parents. But today's teens are rejecting Pretense. Born into a world of hype, their internal BS-meters are highly sensitive and blisteringly accurate. Words like ‘amazing,’ ‘astounding,’ and ‘spectacular’ are translated as ‘blah,’ ‘blah,’ and ‘blah.’ Consequently, tried and true selling methods that worked as recently as a year ago are working far less well today. The world is again changing stripe and color. We're at another tipping point. Can you feel it?Then, 4 years ago, (Nov. 1, 2004,) I wrote,The Age of The Baby Boomer ended in 2003. The torch has been handed to a new generation with new ideas and values. Sure, we Boomers still hold the power at the top, but the prevailing worldview that drives our nation is completely other than the one we grew up with. Businesses that don't get in step are going to find it increasingly difficult to succeed…Being a Baby Boomer isn't about when you were born. It's about how you see the world…Baby Boomers were idealists who worshipped heroes, perfect icons of beauty and success. Today these icons are seen as phony, posed a

Part Two: If You've Got the Nerve.“The brain has three natural roadblocks that stand in the way of truly innovative thinking:1.    flawed perception2.    fear of failure3.    the inability to persuade others.”– Dr. Gregory Berns, neuroscientist, psychiatrist, and Distinguished Chair of Neuroeconomics at Emory University.Need a fresh perspective? Want to alter your perception, think new thoughts, create a whole new paradigm?1.   Look at a map of your city. Choose an area unfamiliar to you. Drive there, then get out and walk for an hour. Call a friend to come and pick you up.2.   Go into a restaurant you suspect you won’t like. Order something weird.3.   Sit at a bus stop for 30 minutes. Talk with whomever sits down next to you.4.   Attend the worship services of a faith that is not your own.5.   Read out loud to someone else The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost.6.   Watch How to Hype a Black and Mild on YouTube. (7 min., 38sec.)7.   Attend ESCAPE THE BOX, the advanced session of Free the Beagle at Wizard Academy.“It typically takes a novel stimulus – either a new piece of information or getting out of the environment in which an individual has become comfortable – to jolt attentional systems awake and reconfigure both perception and imagination. The more radical and novel the change, the greater the likelihood of new insights being generated.” – p.58, Iconoclast, by Gregory Berns.If you’re like most people, you read that quote from Greg Berns last week and said, “I get it,” but then you didn’t actually do anything.James Michener won the Pulitzer Prize in 1948 for his book, Tales of the South Pacific. He went on to earn more than one hundred million dollars as the author of more than 40 novels.At age 88, Michener wrote, “When young people in my writing classes ask what subjects they should study to become writers, I surprise them by replying: ‘Ceramics and eurhythmic dancing.’ When they look surprised I explain: ‘Ceramics so you can feel form evolving through your fingertips molding the moist clay, and eurhythmic dancing so you can experience the flow of motion through your body. You might develop a sense of freedom that way.’” – This Noble Land, chap.10But it's unlikely that any of his students ever took those classes. They just thought, “Form and freedom. I get it,” and carried on as they were, unchanged. But I'm convinced Michener meant what he said. His advice to his students was to push themselves to do things that didn't come naturally to them. He urged them to stir the deep waters of the unconscious mind.Transformation happens experientially, not intellectually. James Michener knew this. Dr. Gregory Berns knows this. Dr. Richard D. Grant knows this. And now you know it, too.Two and a half years ago I wrote, “Humans are peculiar creatures. We are capable of much, yet do little. Doubt, insecurity, fear and ambition blind our wide-open eyes to the colors of meaningful life. We hibernate, deep in the bellies of our comfort zones… Do you want to expand your world? Meet interesting people? Learn about different cultures? Then get on your hands and knees, drop to your belly and squirm under the fence that surrounds your insulated life.” – from the preface and back cover of People Stories, Inside the Outside.Cognoscenti Dave Lofranco came to me recently and said, “Let's actually do what Michener said. If you'll find a dance instructor and a pottery teacher, I'll donate the money to buy a commercial pottery-firing kiln.” I presented Dave's idea at the next meeting of the board of directors of Wizard Academy. Clinical psychologist Dr. Richard D. Grant was energized by the thought and a whole new class was born. Check it out.Will you do the deed, take the action, pull the trigger and ride the bullet? Or will you, like those students of Michener, think to yourself, “I get it,” and consider the lesson learned?Roy H. Williams

On January 19, 1998, I wrote a Monday Morning Memo titled, Creativity is an Inert Gas. It was published as chapter 89 in The Wizard of Ads. These are a few of its paragraphs:     Moments of emotional recovery are the best times to think about problems you have not been able to solve. Great, creative insights follow times of great stress. It’s a law of the universe.Think of creativity as an inert gas, a substance unique. An inert gas cannot enter into compounds with other substances because, in each of its atoms, the outer ring of electrons is completely full. An inert gas is stable and cannot be changed.Unless you jolt it with too much stimulation.Pass a current through an inert gas and a single electron in the outer ring of each atom will be pushed into an orbit where it does not belong. But it cannot stay there. As the electron falls back into its proper place, the excess energy is released as light.This is a miracle witnessed nightly on ten million street corners in America. Without argon and mercury vapor streetlights, America would be a very dark place, indeed. Without the radiant beauty of neon, we would be a much less colorful people.Recovery from overstimulation is a magical moment. As each crisis dissipates and your emotional electrons return to their proper orbits, don’t close your eyes to the light.Use it for all it’s worth.Ten years after I wrote that memo, Gregory Berns, a neuroscientist, published the following:“Did you know that when you see the same thing over and over again, your brain uses less and less energy? Your mind already knows what it’s seeing, so it doesn’t make the effort to process the event again. Just putting yourself in new situations can make you see things differently and jump-start your creativity.” – inside front flap, Iconoclast, by Gregory Berns.Dr. Gregory Berns is a heavyweight: he’s a neuroscientist, a psychiatrist, and the Distinguished Chair of Neuroeconomics at Emory University. His research has been profiled in the New York Times, Forbes, and the Wall Street Journal. His new book, Iconoclast, was published by Harvard Business School Press.According to Berns, the tendency of the brain is to take shortcuts through categorization. “Categories are death to imagination… Often the harder one tries to think differently, the more rigid the categories become. There is a better way, a path that jolts the brain out of preconceived notions of what it is seeing: bombard the brain with new experiences. Only then will it be forced out of efficiency mode and reconfigure its neural networks… The surest way to evoke the imagination is to confront the perceptual system with people, places and things it hasn’t seen before.” – condensed from pages 54 and 58Wizard Academy takes you by surprise.It’s a nonstop new experience. Aroooo!Do you remember how I was saying that moments of recovery from overstimulation are magical times for creative thinking? Now let’s look at Dr. Berns’ next statement:“It typically takes a novel stimulus – either a new piece of information or getting out of the environment in which an individual has become comfortable – to jolt attentional systems awake and reconfigure both perception and imagination. The more radical and novel the change, the greater the likelihood of new insights being generated.” – p.58, Iconoclast, by Gregory BernsLooking to make a change?Remember: transformation happens experientially, not intellectually.Come to Wizard Academy. Things happen here that can’t happen anywhere else.Or at least that’s what we’ve been told.Roy H. Williams

No, We're Not Talking About Advertising TodayI recently had dinner with a young friend who has been married for about a year. When he said that he and his wife were hoping to have a child, I knew it was time for The Talk. An older friend gave me The Talk twenty-eight years ago when Pennie was pregnant with Rex, our oldest. Since then, I’ve never failed to pass it along when I hear that a man is about to become a first-time father.“Everything you hear about the joys of fatherhood are true,” I said, “but if you’re not ready for the backlash it can knock you off your feet and screw up the rest of your life.” He gave me a quizzical look so I continued. “Men who cheat on their wives usually do so for the first time shortly after the birth of their first child.”His quizzical look intensified. “But that doesn’t make any sense.”I spoke to him matter-of-factly, like a judge pronouncing judgment on the accused. “You become invisible on the day your baby is born. You remain invisible for nearly a year. You exist only for carrying things. All conversations revolve around the baby. No one asks you about your day. Friends and family walk past you to get to the baby. You’re effectively an outcast. You can’t complain that the baby gets all the attention. That would make you look like a jerk. Your wife is always tired and distracted. Days turn into weeks. You feel like you’ve been dumped by your girlfriend. You’re lonely. Then a girl smiles at you at work. You haven’t seen that in awhile. And she laughs at all your witty remarks. She pays attention to you…”My friend’s mouth opened a little as his jaw slackened. “Wow.”And that, dear reader, is what’s known among men as The Talk.Helping a young man past the crisis of his first child is easy. What’s tough is counseling a mature husband who finds himself attracted to another woman.Dr. Richard D. Grant is a clinical psychologist on the board of directors at Wizard Academy. Here’s some advice he gave a roomful of men recently in Tuscan Hall:“When you find yourself attracted to a woman who is not your wife, sit down with a pen and paper and make a list of the things you like best about the woman. Then look at those attributes as action items on a ‘To Do’ list for self-improvement. It’s never really about the woman. It’s about what’s missing in your own life.”Dr. Grant then told a story about taking his sons to get a haircut when they were young. “…out of the backroom comes a young woman with scissors in her hand, tan, taut, perky, athletic, windblown, outdoorsy. I was spellbound. So I grabbed a pen and starting writing like mad. Then, looking at the list of her attributes, it hit me: 'I've been working feverishly on a book for months, buried in a manuscript. I'm in need of exercise, sunshine, the outdoors.' So I made a commitment to myself to pursue those things aggressively. Thirty minutes later I left that barbershop with two freshly groomed sons and a To Do list for self-improvement. I never looked back.”Among the 40,000 readers of the Monday Morning Memo there are certain to be many for whom today’s memo brought back memories of past heartaches. For this, I apologize.My goal is not to turn your eyes to the past, but to the future.SUMMARY: Guys, we’re always attracted to what’s missing in our lives. And the thing we miss most will sometimes show up in the form of a woman.So if you are married but attracted to another woman, grab a pen and paper. Make a list. Get to work on yourself. This is the path that leads to lasting satisfaction.Yours,Roy H. Williams

And Tried To Warn Us Three Years AgoI met Greg Farrell in 1999 while on a book tour promoting Secret Formulas of the Wizard of Ads. We shared a bottle of red wine at the Waldorf-Astoria’s Bull and Bear pub. Greg and I hit it off and we stayed in touch.I remember making the phone call in 2002. “Greg, I’ve been thinking about what you told me and I want you to write a book called America Robbed Blind. Will you do it?” Greg wasn’t sure he had the time, so I emailed him my cover design: the Statue of Liberty wearing a blindfold, holding a bag full of cash.The image was a double-prediction:1. The American people, blindfolded, left holding the bag after a robbery.2. The American people, blindfolded, about to be robbed of all they had.Greg laughed when he saw the cover and said he would write the book. That was 2002. Wizard Academy Press published America Robbed Blind in January, 2005.Back in those days Greg was an investigative reporter for USA Today. His job was to monitor the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and investigate Wall Street crime.Greg was America’s only reporter in the courtroom for every minute of the trials of Enron, Worldcom, Tyco and Martha Stewart. As an investigative reporter Greg dug deep, full time, year after year. “Roy, the SEC is being set up to take the fall for a series of financial disasters,” he said. “This whole Enron thing is just the tip of the iceberg.”“What do you mean?”“The number of publicly traded companies has grown exponentially in recent years, yet the budget for the SEC had been increased by only a small amount. Think of it this way,” Greg said, “Andy and Barney did a pretty good job patrolling Mayberry, but now they’re being told they have to patrol Los Angeles without any additional help, and without any bullets for their guns.”Greg went on to explain how Congress keeps the SEC under-funded so that big business can grow unimpeded, unsupervised, and unregulated. If Congress allowed the SEC to do its job, big business would cry, “The government has us handcuffed! We can’t compete with all these government regulations.”Big companies donate big dollars to congressional candidates. Are you beginning to get the picture?Page 68 of Greg’s book details the proposal made during the summer of 2000 by Arthur Levitt, chairman of the SEC at the time.Levitt was absolutely convinced that a financial catastrophe was coming and begged Congress to give him the power to stop it.“But several big firms whose campaign contributions to lawmakers on Capitol Hill gave them enormous clout, fought the proposal aggressively… Levitt went to extraordinary lengths to show Congress the dangers that lay ahead… But Levitt’s warnings fell on deaf ears. So he took the battle to the states… It was only in November of 2000, when he learned that Congress was threatening to cut the SEC’s budget if the new rule went into effect, that Levitt relented.” – Page 69, America Robbed Blind, (2005)In essence, Congress told Andy to quit complaining or they would take away his budget to pay Barney.When the whole Enron thing was over, I asked Greg if he thought anything like that could ever happen again. “You can count on it,” he said, “It’s inevitable. As long as Congress keeps the watchdog starved, muzzled and on a chain, the abuses will multiply. Arthur Levitt begged Congress to empower the SEC and they spanked him for it.”Enron and his cousins robbed American investors of more than 500 billion dollars. Then on September 18, 2008, after it was learned that Americans would again be left holding the bag for a 700 billion-dollar bank heist, John McCain, a lawmaker on Capitol Hill for the past 26 years, said, “The chairman of the SEC serves at the appointment of the president and in my view, has betrayed the public’s trust. If I were president today, I would fire him.’’Wow. They’re trying to hang this debacle around the neck of the SEC and use them as the scapegoat, just as Greg said they would. (Hey, if Obama had said it, I’d be equally appalled, so don’t make the mistake of thinking I have a political bias. I don’t.)Perhaps the greatest tragedy of all is that Greg described exactly how to fix the problem in his book (pages 180-181,) but no one paid attention:1. Allow the SEC to keep the feesit currently collects from public companies. Self-funding would protect the financial health of the commission from the whims of its Congressional overlords, and allow the SEC to grow at the same rate as the financial markets it polices.2. Give SEC attorneys criminal enforcement powers.3. Give bonuses to successful SEC attorneys.Plaintiff’s lawyers who bring cases against tobacco companies and asbestos manufacturers put years of effort into the cause because if they win, the financial payoff is astronomical. But an SEC lawyer has almost no incentive to take on difficult cases where the commission is outgunned by a public company’

I recently asked a group of 14 men to share a snapshot from their photo albums of random memory, a vivid image, unfaded, a moment inexplicable, captured forever by a long-ago click of that camera in the brain.Here’s what they handed me on scraps of paper: “Trish’s laugh as she walked out of the room on the day we met.”Click.“How my knee bled when I crossed the line.”Click.“Father Caprio lifting the fear of failure from my fifteen year-old shoulders.”Click.“Game nearly over, rain pouring, no time outs remain. A seven year-old says, ‘Coach, I gotta go to the bathroom.’ I say, ‘No time-outs. Go in your pants.’ He does. We win.”Click.“The sight of my mother driving into the park an hour after I nearly drowned.”Click.“Seeing my Dad lying in a hospital bed after a liver transplant, hundreds of tubes running out of his body.”Click.“Trevor’s face after I beat him in a footrace – two things had died – our friendship, and something in his eyes.”Click.“Holding her hand as we said a prayer and goodbye.”Click.“Walking onstage for the first time at age 40 to play a sold-out show for screaming fans.”Click.“Seeing my one year-old nephew’s lifeless body.”Click.“Cleaning two garbage bags full of fish in the bathtub with my Dad.”Click.“Ringing the bell to start a local wrestling match when I was seven.”Click.“The car ride with my parents as we drove across town to pick out a puppy.”Click.“Walking through the haunted hallway to get to the playground on the other side.”(That last one about the haunted hallway almost sounds like a metaphor for life, doesn’t it?)My point today is this: Each of us lives in a private world alone, trapped by our own opinions, limited by our own attitudes, guided by our own experiences. Sometimes I wonder how we’re able to relate to each other at all.And yet we create ads under the assumption that customers are all alike.When writing ads:1. Never assume that other people think like you do. You’ve got to be willing to see your own opinions as those of an irrelevant freak.2. Never assume that other people make decisions using the same criteria you use. EXAMPLE: A product comes in two sizes. A ten-ounce package costs a dollar. A forty-ounce package costs two dollars. Half the people will buy the ten-ounce package because it’s cheaper. The other half will buy the forty-ounce package because it’s cheaper.3. Never assume your ad to be relevant to more than 10 percent of the people who encounter it. There is no such thing as the general public.4. Never write to “everyone.” An ad written to an individual is always more effective than an ad written to a faceless mob.Click the highlighted word in any of the quotes above to see how a random quote can be used as a persona-target at which to aim your ad writing.I’ll see you next week.Same time. Same computer.Roy H. Williams

Elizabeth was a young Quaker girl who fell happily in love and got married in 1929. “Morgan Vining, my husband, swept my little boat out of the shallows into the sunlit depths of life’s stream and we had almost five years together before, in a single moment, he was gone.”Car wrecks happen quickly.Elizabeth Vining was adrift. A line from the Breton Fisherman's Prayer said it best, “Oh Lord, your sea is so great and my boat is so small.”Elizabeth became a schoolteacher who in the evening wrote children’s books. Her most popular title was Adam on the Road (1942).Then, at the end of World War Two, 43 year-old Elizabeth Vining got a call. General Douglas MacArthur had decided not to charge Japan’s Emperor Hirohito with war crimes. Instead, he asked that Elizabeth Vining become the tutor of Crown Prince Akihito, the emperor’s son.Elizabeth accepted.Upon her arrival in Japan, she encountered a lonely 12 year-old boy whose eyes sparkled with “a hidden sense of humor.” As crown prince, Akihito lived separately from his parents. He saw them only once a week, for a one-hour meal together.The next 4 years were filled with English lessons, games of Hide and Seek, Monopoly and stories of Abraham Lincoln. The seeds of independent thinking were planted.Risk orientation.Individual effort and reward.Breaking the rules.Thinking outside the box.These ideas were profoundly unJapanese.In 1950, Elizabeth Vining returned quietly to the United States since Akihito’s mastery of English was nearly as good as her own. Akihito’s farewell gift to Mrs. Vining was a poem, written in his best calligraphy, about the birds returning to the Akasaka Palace Gardens after the war.Soon after the departure of Mrs. Vining, young Akihito met beautiful Michiko on the tennis court. In 1959, he broke 2,600 years of Japanese tradition by marrying Michiko, a commoner.And a Quaker woman from America was the only foreigner allowed to attend the wedding.But Akihito wasn’t finished surprising the world. All Japan was stunned when he and Michiko announced they would raise their own children. Another 2,600 year-old tradition, shattered by the 125th emperor of Japan.Akihito’s attitude gave freedom to other Japanese to begin thinking independently as well. Honda, Sony, Toyota, Mitsubishi and their amazing fruits of innovation sprouted from a single seed, planted by a Quaker widow.Vining opened the door in 1946. Deming walked through it in 1950.Elizabeth Vining lived to be 97 years old. And each year on her birthday, with all the precision and dependability we have come to expect from Japan, a limousine from the Japanese embassy would stop in front of her home as a tuxedoed ambassador delivered a giant bouquet of flowers.A simple woman quietly did her best,a young boy had a change of heart,and a nation opened the doors of its mind.It would appear that a small boat is able to cross a great sea.Roy H. Williams

for Realtors, Used Cars and Free PuppiesReal estate is a business involving mountains of money. It’s also a business in crisis. Put these together and it means ka-ching if you know how to make the phone ring for realtors.You ought not be surprised that I know how to make phones ring. What should surprise you is that I’m willing to tell you… for free.Here’s how to Make Magic in real estate:1.   Ask the realtor to show you an unusual house. More often than not, you’ll want the house to be in the price range an average person could afford.2.   What makes this house quirky or weird or memorable isn’t really important. What matters is that it has something distinctive about it.3.   Visit the house. Ponder the distinctive feature until it triggers the memory of a cultural icon.4.   Pull the icon into your ad copy. Radio works best, but this technique also works well in newspaper classifieds.5.   Always mention the price of the house.6.   Never mention the square footage, the number of bedrooms, or the address.Let’s say it’s a white, frame house with a front porch, the kind that blanketed America during the first half of the 20th century. Older parts of every town are littered with these. The only thing this house has going for it is a giant tree in the front yard.ANOUNCER: Telling your friends how to find your new house will be easy.FEMALE ON PHONE:  “We’re the house with the giant tree in the yard. You can’t miss us.”ANNOUNCER: That big tree is begging for a tire swing. Will yours be the family that finally hangs one from that massive branch? Add a white picket fence and it’s the house of Tom Sawyer. Here comes Becky Thatcher down the sidewalk. This is the house of a Norman Rockwell image. In a minute you’ll see Andy and Barney cruise past in the patrol car. Aunt Bee is making a pie in the kitchen. This is a house for celebrating Thanksgiving and Christmas. A home to come home to. And just two hundred and nine thousand dollars makes it yours. Want to see it? Call Kathryn Nelson at 555-5555. She’s not one of those big hair, lots-of-jewelry realtors. She’s regular people.REALTOR: Kathryn Nelson. Small hair, modest jewelry. 555-5555Okay, that was easy. Let’s try again. This time it’s a house begging for a remodel. The appliances are a weird color, the sinks and bathtubs are pink porcelain and the bathroom tile is checkerboard black and white. The light fixtures are strange.ANNOUNCER: Did you ever see Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany’s? Distinctive. Avant-guarde. Sophisticated. Straight out of The New Yorker magazine. This is the house of Holly Golightly. Ridiculously retro. Definitely not for everyone. But absolutely adorable. And it has a driveway built for a sportscar. There’s only one and this is it. Two hundred and twenty-nine thousand. And the shrubbery! I’m not even going to try to describe it. Listed by Harvey Rich Realtors, of course. Harvey Rich has all the interesting houses.REALTOR: Boring houses are for boring people. Harvey Rich has interesting houses. And I’d love to show you this one. 555-5555 Harvey Rich.Now let me make this clear: The goal is to make the phone ring. Whether or not the caller buys the advertised house is unimportant. The realtor just wants to meet folks who are thinking of moving. He or she wants a shot at listing their current home. If the respondent doesn’t like the home you featured, the realtor will happily drive them to see some other ones.NOTE: If you yield to temptation and add any of the typical “3 bedroom, two bath” real estate language, it’ll kill response deader than a bag of hammers.The Cognoscenti will recognize this technique as a variation of Being Perfectly Robert Frank:1. Selected Details.2. Interesting Angle.3. What to Leave Out.This is a Wizard of Ads signature technique. Consequently, it requires an advertiser bold enough to believe that every other realtor is doing it wrong. These people are harder to find than you think. Most advertisers secretly believe in conformity to the norm.Jason Embleton is a Cognoscenti graduate of Wizard Academy and a used car dealer. Here are a couple of radio ads Jason wrote recently:A Chevy pick-up with a sunroof. Four doors. And the back seat along with the wall behind it folds down to create the longest, roomiest cargo space of any vehicle on the road. Yours for $19,995. It’s the Swiss Army knife of trucks. Jet black with dove grey leather. It’s a weird, cool truck for a weird, cool person. See it for yourself at Embleton Auto, where the only pressure is in the tires. Recognize the technique?It’s a car you’ll want to drive forever. Just nineteen thousand, nine hundred dollars. A limited-edition Mini-Cooper with a factory-supercharged BMW engine. Black with a charcoal hood scoop and wrap-around racing stripes. Six

A Monday Morning Memo of the Wizard of AdsIt’s like you’ve asked him to defend his religion; the business owner who believes in growing his businesses through exceptional service delivered by extraordinary people gets testy when you ask him to name a business that has successfully employed this strategy.It’s like trying to convince a believer there is no God.I’ve encountered dozens of business owners who believed in their hearts they had extraordinary employees.None of them ever did.Properly enforced systems, methods, policies and procedures allow a company to get exceptional actions from ordinary people. If your business requires you to attract and retain extraordinary people, you’ve got a dangerous business model.And then there’s the Exceptional Service Myth:“If we give our customers exceptional service, they’ll tell all their friends.”My response:“No, they won’t. Not in large numbers, anyway.”“But we get comments and letters every day from customers raving about the service we gave them.”“Good service leads to customer loyalty but it doesn't breed word-of-mouth. Most people assume any plumber can fix the pipes, any electrician can solve the electrical problem and any retail store will accept the return of a defective item with a smile. We take competence for granted. We tell their boss when an employee has delighted us. That’s how we reward the employee. We tell our friends when a company has disappointed us. That’s how we protect our friends. Most people feel they’ve settled the service debt when they praise the employee to their boss. But they hesitate to tell their friends because they can’t be certain their friends will encounter the same employee.”“But our competitors are dishonest and incompetent and we’re not! You just need to help us educate the customer.”“I’ve been down that road dozens of times during the past 30 years. You’re not going to like where it leads.”“What do you mean?”“I’ve spent million of dollars of other people’s money trying to convince the public they should buy from my clients because my clients were more honest, cared more deeply and were committed to delivering an extraordinary buying experience.”“How did that turn out?”“Most customers assume you’re trying to direct attention away from the fact that your prices are too high. When the occasional customer does believe your claims, you’ve usually raised their expectations so high that you can’t possibly live up to the picture you’ve painted in their mind. Ads that promise exceptional service don’t increase your sales figures but they do increase your complaints.”“So what kinds of ads will increase my sales figures?”I’ll tell you next week.Roy H. Williams

A brief summary of this episodeA Post American World? Really?August 25, 2008ListenOur American men dropped the baton in the 4×100 meter relay. It was embarrassing. Unthinkable.A few minutes later our American women did precisely the same thing.The commentators were brutal, but accurate: “You have to look at the new leadership at USA Track and Field and wonder if it’s been a vacuum of leadership. There does seem to be no cohesiveness. It seems that everyone has their own agenda.”Bob Costas wrapped it up by saying, “Did you notice that all the other nations had their country names nicely printed on their bibs? And look at the Americans: ‘USA’ written on theirs in magic marker.”Oil is more than $120/barrel, which makes the cost of driving home from work approximately the same as the cost of dinner. Gold and platinum recently rose to all-time high prices because rich people hoard precious metals when they lose confidence in the leadership of America. Our newscasters make certain we go to bed each night knowing inflation and unemployment are on the rise.Thanks guys. You’re a real ray of sunshine.I switched off the TV, went online and stumbled across a headline posted by CBS News: “Coming Soon: A Post-American World.” The subtitle said, “With The Rise Of China And Other Economies, The Golden Age Of American Influence May Be Coming To An End.”The story opened by saying, “Millions of us have been swept up in the color and drama of the Olympic Games. But the Beijing Stadium isn't the only arena for global competition. Now, after decades of dominance, will the U.S. soon be 'passing the torch'”?CBS went on to say, “America's beverage, Budweiser beer, is now owned by Belgians… And isn't the United States supposed to be the place with the biggest and best of everything? The tallest building in the world isn't in New York or Chicago anymore. It's in Taipei. The Mall of America in Bloomington, Minnesota, once the world's largest, isn't even in the top ten now. The biggest one's in – surprise, surprise – China.”CBS then quoted Albert Keidel, an expert on China's economy, as saying China “will deserve and demand leadership in global institutions.”CBS asked rhetorically, “Are we slipping? Are we reaching some inevitable tipping point that will change the world as we know it? Is the golden age of America coming to an end?”I turned off my computer and grinned as I recalled Mark Twain’s response to the American newspaper that printed his obituary. His telegram said, “The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated.”Yes, it’s dark and it’s getting cold. But I’ve already seen this movie, so I know how it ends. It was 1980. Our president was miffed because Russia had invaded Afghanistan, so he told our athletes they couldn’t compete in the Olympics in Moscow. Oil and gold were at an all-time high and we were in the grip of rising inflation. Even more embarrassing was the fact that fifty-two U.S. diplomats were held hostage in Iran for 444 days. Our president tried to rescue them but America’s helicopters broke down and 8 of our military people lost their lives.Iran laughed at us.Then we got a new president. The Iranians respected the new guy and released the hostages while he was taking the oath of office.My comments today have nothing to do with political parties. My comments have to do with leadership. And optimism. And the ability to inspire optimism in others.When times are good, America gets soft. I’ve seen it. But when times get tough, America tightens her belt, rolls up her sleeve and shows her true colors. I’ve seen that, too. All we need is a leader.Oh, yes. I have one last thing to say:Kiss my ass, CBS. We’re about to have an election.Roy H. Williams

Advertising salespeople are highly paid because rejection hurts. They told me to rub Zig Ziglar on it, but the sting and the ache stayed with me. I was 20 years old.The smiley seminar speaker said, “Look in the mirror each morning and repeat these affirmations.”Sorry, I’ve already got a religion and it makes me very uncomfortable with self-worship. I know there’s a God and it isn’t me.My manager tried to teach me how to overcome objections but that only made me feel worse. People were rejecting me because they assumed I was a professional liar and now I was becoming one.Everywhere I went I heard, “I tried advertising and it didn’t work.”“Yeah, I know,” whispered the little voice inside me, “I see it not work every day.”You would have fired me by now, right? I would have fired me, too. But Dennis Worden saw a spark in me that he believed he could fan into a flame. Lucky for both of us, he was right.My career found wings the day I encountered an advertiser who had a message worth hearing. I delivered his message to my little audience and his business exploded. No question about it, my tiny audience was making him rich. Now I had a success story to tell my prospects. But a success story is a doubled-edged sword. Filled with names and dates and details and numbers, success stories cut through the doubt and make prospects say yes. But the second edge – the one that cuts the seller – is the implied promise, “The same thing will happen to you.”But if that advertiser’s message is weak, you’ll soon be hearing, “I bought what you said and it didn’t work.” I had been groping blindly in a pitch-dark room when I flicked the light switch on the wall. Suddenly everything was clear: Message and copy are two different things.“The fish trap exists because of the fish. Once you've gotten the fish you can forget the trap. The rabbit snare exists because of the rabbit. Once you've gotten the rabbit, you can forget the snare. Words exist because of meaning. Once you've gotten the meaning, you can forget the words.” – Chuang-tzu, 350 BCIf Chuang-tzu had been in advertising, he would have said, “Copy exists because of message. Once you’ve gotten the message, you can forget the copy.”That first successful client owned an auto body shop. He had an invisible location but a powerful message that had never been told. I was merely the guy who uncovered his shiny message and held it up in the light. That was 30 years ago, but I can still tell you the essence of Danny’s message:1.   No one ever plans to have a traffic accident.2.   You don’t really have to get 3 estimates from 3 different body shops.3.   You don’t even have to pay your $250 or $500 deductible.4.   Your insurance company will happily pay whatever their adjustor says is the right amount.5.   When you’ve been involved in a traffic accident, call me.6.   I’ll send out a wrecker to pick up you and your car.7.   I’ll give you a free loaner car to drive while I’m repairing your car.8.   I’ll notify your insurance company and meet with the adjustor.9.   I’ll fix your car for whatever amount the insurance adjustor agrees to pay.10.   You don’t even have to pay your deductible.11.   And since we’ve already got the paint in the gun, we’ll fix those little door dings and scratches on the other side of the car that were there before the accident. No extra charge.12.   You’ll get back a car that’s better than it was before the accident.You don’t have to be a good copywriter to create a great ad from that message. You just have to make sure the advertiser understands:1.   They need to stay on the air long enough for people to hear them and remember their message. That’s when they’ll begin to see results.2.   Then they have to wait for the listener to need them.3.   The longer they stay on the air, the deeper the message goes into memory and the better it works.I’ve never seen an advertiser fail because they were reaching the wrong people but I’ve seen thousands fail because they had a weak message. We create failure when we assume creative copy will compensate for the fact that an advertiser has nothing to say.Are there exceptions to what I’ve told you? Of course.1.   The advertiser with a weak message, often repeated, will prevail over a competitor with an equally weak message less often heard. When weak vs. weak, frequency is a tiebreaker.2.   The advertiser with a weak message wrapped in cleverness and humor will prevail over a competitor with an equally weak message wrapped in a brown paper bag.3.   The advertiser with a weak message and a big ad budget will prevail over a competitor with a strong message that never gets heard.I made my fortune searching out little businesses with strong

A Monday Morning Memo for the Clients and Friends of Roy H. WilliamsYou walk into a room, empty but for a table carved from crystal. Girdling the table are 11 other persons whose occupations are similar to yours.You place ten thousand dollars on the table, your gift to the group. Each of the other 11 does the same. But this is a magic table. You don’t walk away with your own ten thousand. You get the entire hundred and twenty.And so does everyone else.The crystal table is a metaphor. Its benefits are real, but the stakes are much higher than a mere hundred and twenty thousand dollars. And you need not bring any cash. Bring instead the things you’ve learned over the years – your failures and successes, your experiments and discoveries, your golden nuggets of experience.And everyone else will bring theirs. Are you beginning to see the power of a Peer Group?My friend John Young says, “There’s a fundamental difference between a smart man and a wise man. A smart man makes a mistake, learns from it, and never makes that mistake again. But a wise man finds a smart man and learns from him how to avoid that mistake altogether.”When people share their experiences in an atmosphere of respect and mutual trust, a special kind of magic occurs: smart people become wise and their businesses begin to grow.The American Small Business Institute is about to launch Peer Groups of 12 persons each. Would you like to be in one of them?Guided by a moderator and an agenda, each group will teleconference weekly for exactly one hour.Extraordinary? Yes.Exclusive? Yes.Expensive? No.The new member fee will be $500 and first year dues will be just $200 per month. We anticipate there will be Peer Groups for gym owners, body shop owners, convenience store owners, restaurant owners and bookies.Just kidding about the bookies.We will, however, try to form an American Small Business Peer Group for just about any business category except jewelers. This is because jewelers already have the ultimate peer group available to them. Likewise, plumbers and HVAC contractors have extraordinary opportunity as well.You’re just one click away from complete details about the American Small Business Peer Groups.Heads Up: Next week’s Monday Morning Memo is going to be highly controversial. If I don’t talk myself out of it between now and then, I’ll probably lose a lot of subscribers.It's a subject far more personal than politics or religion.I wonder which me will win the debate.Yours,Roy H. Williams

and the Smell of Fresh PaintCommercially speaking, where are things happening in your town? Move to where the action is. Follow Best Buy, Home Depot, Starbucks and the other Big Boys who have already done the research.Nothing draws a crowd like a crowd.Media costs are escalating and the public is hiding from ads. These are just two of the reasons why a great location is more important today than ever before.Expensive rent is the cheapest advertising your money can buy.Is Walgreens able to afford great locations because they do a big volume, or do they do a big volume because they always secure great locations?A high-visibility location communicates leadership. It implies that you do things better than your competitors.The goal of advertising is to become familiar to your customer, to become part of their world so they think of you immediately when they need what you sell. All else being equal, customers choose the familiar over the unfamiliar. A great location makes you familiar to the public.Are you in retail? Cut your yellow page ads dramatically or altogether. Add these dollars to your occupancy budget. (The yellow pages are a service directory. Don’t waste your retail exposure dollars there.)Cheap rent is seductive and insidious. It ensnares even the brightest people.Two weeks ago I was listening to a man tell me about his business when I abruptly told him that his problems were the result of a bad location. He hadn't yet told me anything about his location when I made the statement.“What makes you think I have a bad location?”“I knew the moment you told me which parts of your company were profitable and which were struggling.”“But I didn’t think the location would matter for a business in my category. We’re a destination. We don’t need drive-by traffic.”“How much do you spend for occupancy and how much are you spending for advertising?”“Two thousand a month for rent. Seventy-five hundred a month on radio ads.”“What would it cost to be where the action is?”“About four thousand a month.”“Take the extra two thousand from the ad budget. Four thousand for occupancy and fifty-five hundred on the radio will make you a lot more money.”Your location tells the public what you believe about your company in your heart.How proud is your location?Roy H. Williams

It's as easy as A.B.C.You’re attracted to art1. when it stands for something you believe in,2. when it shows you a reflection of your own core values, or3. gives you a glimpse of your inner face.You're drawn to a brand for precisely the same reasons.A cultural icon is a contemporary archetype, mass-appeal public art, the symbol of a worldview. Cultural icons embody the zeitgeist, the spirit of the age. They reveal the mind of the time.Learn to read the choices of your customers and you'll be able to better serve them.The cars your customers drive reflect choices they have made. Their clothing and accessories reflect additional choices. What do these choices tell you? They decorate their homes and offices with choices that virtually shout their innermost thoughts and feelings. Are you paying attention to any of this?“Show me what a people admire, and I will tell you everything about them that matters.” – Maggie Tufu, The Engines of God, page 398A well-served customer is not easily stolen.Bill Bernbach once said, “Nothing is so powerful as an insight into human nature, what compulsions drive a man, what instincts dominate his action, even though his language so often camouflages what really motivates him. For if you know these things about a man you can touch him at the core of his being.”We buy what we buy to remind ourselves – and tell the world around us – who we are.“I am irresistible, I say, as I put on my designer fragrance. I am a merchant banker, I say, as I climb out of my BMW. I am a juvenile lout, I say, as I down a glass of extra strong lager. I am handsome, I say, as I don my Levi's jeans.” – John KayDo you want to write persuasive ads, speeches and sermons? Use words and phrases that reflect your customer's core values. Connect to his or her worldview.A knowledge of trends among your customers inart (music, hairstyle, clothing, jewelry, etc.)brands (cars, bikes, computers, magazines, etc.) andheroes (the cultural icons they admire)will be the only clues you need.Your business has only 3 or 4 customers living at thousands of different addresses. Your marketing should be crafted to reflect the preferences of each of them.The concepts I've shared today will help you better understandpersona-based ad writing, an important element in Persuasion Architecture®, the marketing technique perfected by New York Times bestselling authors Jeffrey and Bryan Eisenberg.Captain Jeff Sexton is a master of persona-based ad writing. He'll be one of your instructors when you come to Austin to learn how to Write for Radio and the Internet.That class, August 26-27, is just 4 weeks away. Are you coming?Business isn't going to get better until you get better at attracting it.Come.Aroo.Roy H. Williams

Mom’s off-white Formica table with wobbly metal legs had a charred circle on top where I once set a pan that was way too hot. Mom couldn’t afford a tablecloth to cover it, but whenever she suspected a person might have nowhere to go for Thanksgiving dinner, she’d always invite them to our house and have another hungry mouth to feed.Thanksgiving, for me, meant a house jammed with people I’d never seen before and would never see again. But each year I saw a whole other America through the eyes of the misfits who gathered around my charred little circle. And the stories I heard were amazing. It was magical.I miss those days.I watched Mom deny herself necessities during the weeks leading up to Thanksgiving. Her emaciated paycheck couldn’t possibly feed a houseful of strangers, but she always did it anyway. And no guest ever had to worry they were taking more than their share. Mom’s opulence made us believe, at least for an hour, that we were royal.What I’ve written is the sort of thing a person usually writes when someone they love has died, but I’m delighted to report that Mom is alive and healthy and recently returned from a trip to China.I’m telling you about Sue Williams today because she taught me something else when I was young. She said we should give our roses to the living and not save them for the dead.“When a person dies, everyone who loved them will cancel their other obligations, send a big bouquet of flowers, jump on an airplane and fly across the country to look at their dead friend in a box.” Mom waited a moment for this to soak in. “If I’m going to cancel my plans, buy roses and travel because of friendship, I’m going to do it while my friend is alive to smell the flowers and enjoy the adventure with me. And if my friend passes before I do, I'll sit quietly at home and remember the trip we took together.”Once a year, Mom would treat a friend to a small adventure, a 3 or 4-day trip together to someplace interesting. Taos with Theresa. Santa Fe with Dee. A trip to Alaska to see Janice. West Virgina to see Velma. A trip to the Bahamas with Vicki. Spain with Cindy. These are the people my Mom cares about too much to attend their funerals.Stephen Levine poses a very interesting question: “If you were going to die soon and had only one phone call you could make, who would you call and what would you say? And why are you waiting?”I’ve borrowed Stephen’s question for our weekly e-Poll. Your answer, when approved, will appear at the bottom of today’s Memo in the archives at MondayMorningMemo.com. (Approval usually happens within a few hours.)So tell us, who would you call?Roy H. Williams

(Uh oh, am I about to light an email fire I can't put out?)Traditional wisdom says, “Advertise in the newspaper. Everyone reads the newspaper. There are lots of radio stations but only one newspaper.”The problem with traditional wisdom is that it’s usually more tradition than wisdom.Take a look at the chart at the top of this page and you’ll see that the total, combined ad revenues for(1.) the internet with all its banners, pop-ups, co-registration schemes and Google Adwords accounts, plus(2.) the ad revenues from all the billboards sprinkled across the 3.54 million square miles of these United States, plus(3.) the combined revenues of all of America’s radio stationsis less than the combined ad revenues of America’s few hundred newspapers.I hid a big surprise for you in last week’s rabbit hole. Did you see it?Let me summarize for you what it said:If you(1.) make exactly the same offer on radio as in the newspaper, and(2.) spend exactly the same amount of money with each media,(3.) across precisely the same span of time,radio outperforms newspaper nearly14 to 1.As I explained in the detailed report, we fell into our discovery by accident. Our original plan was to buy newspaper ads since we assumed the newspaper would reach a larger percentage of our target than any other media.Our assumptions were based on a faulty perception. That’s traditional wisdom for you.When our test indicated that radio was outperforming newspaper nearly 14 to 1, I began to wonder, “With all the billions of dollars spent in media each year, why has no one ever comparison-tested the media in a series of controlled experiments?”There I go, assuming again. A bit of research led me to uncover a study conducted 37 years ago (1971) by the Research Committee of the National Advisory Council on Radio in Education. On page 155 I found, “For the test, the manufacturer of a shampoo selected territories in which his sales had been equal and satisfactory over a period of years. An advertising campaign with increased appropriations was prepared, and at the end of the test period, sales increases were used as the gauge of the merit of the medium. In territory No. 1, where newspaper advertising was used, the sales were increased by 3 percent; in territory No. 2, where radio only was used, they were increased 40 percent.”Gosh. 40 percent versus 3 percent is nearly 14 to 1, right?Why has there never been a scientifically controlled, nationwide test funded by the radio stations of America?Frankly, I was comforted to learn that my organization was the second, rather than the first entity to discover that radio outproduces newspaper nearly 14 to 1. If we had been the only people ever to discover that little nugget of information, I would have been plagued by doubt. I'm big enough to admit that my confidence was bolstered by the fact that another organization arrived at virtually the identical conclusion when I was just 13 years old.But the greater question remains,“Why has there been no scientifically controlled test?”I ask the advertising agencies spending all those billions,“Why has there been no scientifically controlled test?”I ask the major advertisers of America,“Why has there been no scientifically controlled test?”And I ask you the same question in this week’s e-Poll. We’re anxious to hear your theory.Philip Dusenberry once said, “I have always believed that writing advertisements is the second most profitable form of writing. The first, of course, is ransom notes.”If you want to write, but ransom notes is not your style, get yourself to Austin August 26-27 to learn how to Write for Radio and the Internet, (Yes, the two techniques are virtually identical.) This excellent class is taught by the incomparable Chris Maddock and Jeff Sexton. Tuscan Hall awaits you, friend.Also on the near horizon: The Wild Fiction Workshop will be remembered with fanfare by future generations. Every student who attends will be published in hardback before Christmas. Arooooooo!It's happening August 6th and David Freeman and me.And you?Yours,Roy H. Williams

The Monday Morning Memo for July 7, 2008I’ve known Richie Starkey since I was five. He turns 68 today.Richie said the only thing he wanted for his birthday was for you to pause today at noon, wherever you are in the world, make a peace sign with your fingers and say with a smile, “Peace and Love.”Will you do it?Yes, it’s ridiculous. But before you summarily dismiss his request, let me tell you a bit about Richie and why he might merit your cooperation.1.   People have made fun of his big nose his whole life.2.   He throws a great party.3.   He was dealt a bad hand as a kid.Richie’s dad was a dock worker who walked into a bakery one day to buy a donut and fell in love with the girl behind the counter.Richie was three years old when his parents divorced. At six, Richie was rushed to the hospital for a ruptured appendix which put him into a coma for 10 weeks. Then things went from bad to worse. Awakening from the coma, Richie was given 2 toys to play with in the hospital but the boy in the next bed didn’t have any. Richie leaned out of his bed to give his red bus to the other boy but lost his balance, hitting his head hard enough to throw him back into a coma.When Richie finally got out of the hospital, he’d missed more than a year of school so he was put into a class with much younger children. Richie struggled to get caught up in school but at 13 he caught a cold that turned into pleurisy. This put Richie back into the hospital for several months and threw him even further behind in his schoolwork. Finally, Richie said, “screw it” and dropped out. He could barely read and write.Richie went into business with three young partners and each of the others became incredibly successful. Richie was forever in their shadow.His lifelong dream, sadly, could never be realized. More than anything, Richie wanted to be in the audience during a Beatles concert.This is because the other toy they gave him was a drum. Richie taught himself to play it, began to wear a lot of Rings on his fingers, and dropped the “key” off the end of his name, “Starkey.”Do you have a moment to watch a short video of Richie asking for his birthday present?Peace and Love.Roy H. Williams

Beauty is impossibly thin.The thinnest human hair is half a million angstroms thick. Typing paper is a million angstroms. Yet the layer of quicksilver that turns plate glass into a mirror is only 700 angstroms thick. It would take 714 such layers to equal the thickness of a hair, yet it’s this impossibly thin layer that reflects a woman’s beauty.Beauty may only be skin deep, but the reflection of that beauty is one seven-hundredth of a hair.Spray a coat of varnish onto a globe of the earth and the thickness of that layer will accurately represent the blanket of air that surrounds our planet. Yet most of the beauty of life on earth is contained in that thin, outer skin.Likewise, the nutrition in most vegetables is contained in the outer surface. So don’t scrape your carrots. Don’t peel your potatoes or apples. The outer skin is where the vitamins hide.The outer layer of the brain, the cortex, is only a fraction of a centimeter thick. Yet all the higher functions happen there.Are you beginning to see a pattern? I’m not yet certain what this pattern might mean or how deep and wide it may go, but I’m certainly going to investigate it. What will I discover? Does value always ride close to the surface, or is that an oversimplification?Let the journey begin. Do you want to come along? If you can think of another example of how “value rides the surface,” respond to this week’s e-Poll through the hyperlink at the bottom of the page.Are you, like me, drawn to recurrent patterns? They seem to whisper, saying, “When a thing is true, it’s always true. What is true in marriage will also be true in agriculture and chemistry and architecture and banking. You’ll see it in the Bible and you’ll see it in the sky.”The purpose of Wizard Academy is to discover and document these reliable phenomena, to map their depths and chart their patterns so that we might harness their power to do good.Sigmund Freud, that early investigator of the human psyche, once said, “Everywhere I go, I find a poet has been there before me.” I think I know how he felt. As I ponder this question of whether value always rides the surface of its carrier, I suddenly recall what Robert Louis Stevenson wrote in 1905: “All our arts and occupations lie wholly on the surface; it is on the surface that we perceive their beauty, fitness, and significance; and to pry below is to be appalled by their emptiness and shocked by the coarseness of the strings and pulleys.”You were right, Sigmund. Robert Louis Stevenson already discovered that particular treasure on the island. He was the poet who got here before me.Is any of what I’ve written today useful or valuable? I don’t know. I haven’t finished pondering it. So for the moment I think I’ll quit talking and go back inside.Aroo.Roy H. Williams

“The fundamental shortcoming of most mission statements is that everyone expects them to be highfalutin and all-encompassing. The result is a long, boring, commonplace and pointless joke. Companies are all writing the same mediocre stuff.”– Guy KawasakiMost organizations try to define themselves by telling us what they believe in, what they stand for. But self-definition isn’t believable until you tell us what you stand against.Ever read the Declaration of Independence? Now there’s a mission statement.It says we believe “all men are created equal” and that God gave each of us the right to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” But this famous statement is prefaced by our admission that these things are so obvious that we hold them to be “self evident.”In other words, “It goes without saying.” Who doesn't believe in life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiess? Likewise, most mission statements proclaim things that every company believes in.Do you want your mission statement to be read, quoted, cussed and discussed? If so, don't tell us what your corporate culture includes. Tell us what it excludes. Tell us what you’re fighting against.After it lists the 4 things we feel to be self evident, America’s Declaration of Independence goes on to name 28 things we were against. The point of the document is that we felt strongly enough about these 28 things that we were willing to part company with England over them.Two weeks ago I revealed a bit of self-definition when I said that I didn’t agree with Marshall McLuhan’s statement, “The medium is the message.” In the interest of fairness, I linked my comment to the official, detailed explanation of McLuhan’s statement made by the Chief Strategist of the McLuhan Program in Culture and Technology at the University of Toronto. But alas, this was not enough. My staff tells me that dozens of people sent emails of complaint and debate.God Bless America.We're definitely the Land of the Free. But are we still the Home of the Brave?Most mission statements are pointless for the same reason most ads are pointless:1. They're not written to provide focus or clarity.2. They're not written to separate you from the pack.3. They're not written to persuade.They're written not to offend.My first book, The Wizard of Ads, was named Business Book of the Year 10 years ago. Do you remember the subject of its very first chapter?Take a look.Roy H. Williams

The Wizard's Laws of the Universe, Lesson OneMy friend Kary Mullis once said, “Claims made by scientists… can be separated from the scientists who make them. It isn’t important to know who Isaac Newton was. He discovered that force is equal to mass times acceleration. He was an antisocial, crazy bastard who wanted to burn down his parents’ house. But force is still equal to mass times acceleration.”Antisocial crazy-bastard Newton published his famous Second Law of Motion in 1687 and got all the credit for it even though Shakespeare had made the same observation back in 1603. It was in Hamlet that he said, “Brevity is the soul of wit.”In other words, impact is equal to mass times acceleration.Let me connect the dots for you:1.   The size of an idea is its mass.2.   The shorter the sentence that delivers the idea, the greater its acceleration.How big is your idea? How quickly can you express it? These are the factors that determine the impact of what you say.Capture a big idea and express it in few words.This is the opening paragraph of a famous website about persuasion:You want more revenue. More revenue requires more people taking action. But people only do what they want to do. You have to give them what they want in order to get what you want.That wasn’t badly written. It contained a big idea but let’s see if we can tighten the word count and accelerate the impact:Want more revenue?Revenue requires people taking action.But people only do what they want to do.Give them what they want.They'll give you what you want.All we did was:1. Eliminate 1 appearance of the word “you” to turn an assumptive statement into a question.2. Eliminate 2 appearances of the word “more.”3. Eliminate “You have to” to open with a verb, “Give.”4. Break the long, final sentence into 2 short sentences.Impact was accelerated by cutting seven words and trading five long sentences for six short ones.“Waste not, want not.”“Give me liberty or give me death.”“Nobody doesn't like Sara Lee.”Ever notice how short phrases hit harder than long ones?In the spirit of today’s message, I think I’ll stop right here.Aroo.Roy H. Williams

The Medium is Not the MessageMarshall McLuhan’s famous line, “The medium is the message,” is at best a Japanese koan (ko-ahn.) You know, “What is the sound of one hand clapping,” and all that? I’m sure I’ll get a thousand ranting emails about this, but I’ve always felt koans to be a silly attempt to sound profound.McLuhan’s koan is at the top of my list. It was originally published in his 1964 book, Understanding Media. Nearly half a century later later, his disciples are still trying to explain what he meant.Enough.The medium is the medium.The message is the message.Ad campaigns don’t fail because someone chose the wrong media. Ad campaigns fail because someone chose the wrong message.The job of the media is to deliver your message.Your job is to give the media a message worth delivering.Each media has its own strengths and weaknesses. And because I’ve spent the last 20 years talking about message, today we’ll glance at media:Signage: Expensive signage at an intrusively visible business location is often the cheapest advertising your money can buy. Intrusive visibility is the quality that separates landmarks from scenery. You’re intrusively visible when the public sees you without looking for you. Do you have an intrusive location? Have you maximized your signage?Outdoor: Billboards reach more people for a dollar than any other media and they’re geographically targetable. In other words, you can reach specific pockets of your city with them. Their weakness is that they become invisible after just a few sightings in the same location, so be sure to move your boards every 30 days. Additionally, the average driver is unwilling to look away from the road for longer than eight words. So if you can’t sing your song in eight words or less, billboards aren’t your best bet.Direct Mail: Like billboards, direct mail lets you target geographically and in theory, psychographically as well, assuming the right member of the household sorts the mail. The problem with direct mail is that most of it gets thrown away unopened. And the costs of printing and delivery have skyrocketed.Television: Television delivers the highest impact of any media, but unpredictable viewer habits make it difficult to reach the same viewer a second or third time within seven nights sleep. If your message needs repetition, television is even trickier to schedule than radio. And the cost of production is extremely high for an ad that won’t embarrass you. But if you’ve got the cash and it’s not the off-season (summertime,) TV can be a powerful ally.Radio: Sound is neurologically intrusive and radio feels like a friend. The problem with radio is that most ads are written in such a way that they’re easily ignored, so your ad will need to be presented repeatedly to the same listener. This need for repetition makes scheduling easily botched. Most campaigns are scheduled to reach the largest possible number of people. Consequently, these schedules deliver too little repetition. Be careful you don’t make this mistake. The good news is that radio is the great equalizer. Unlike magazines, television and direct mail, radio ads don’t require a big budget to be world class; radio requires nothing but word skills and imagination.Newspaper: Newspaper ads need a visual trigger, a picture of your product. This trigger will attract the attention of customers who are consciously in the market for your product, but those who aren’t in the market will fail to see your ad. Consequently, newspaper ads often deliver immediately identifiable results, but these results fail to get better and better over time. In the short run, newspaper wins. In the long run, TV and radio win.Yellow Pages: Like newspaper, the yellow pages reach people who are consciously in the market. But while newspapers promote products, the yellow pages promote services. The highest goal of a service business is to be the name that immediately comes to mind when the public needs your services. This can be accomplished with Radio, Television, Signage or Billboards. But if your budget doesn't permit you to win customers before they need you, make sure you sing loud in the yellow pages.Magazines: Perhaps the ultimate tool for psychographic targeting, magazines ads tend to be expensive. Another downside is that most are delivered with very poor frequency, often just once a month. But when your message fits the readership, magazine ads can be awesome.Internet: The advantage of the internet is that it lets you reach the whole world. The disadvantage of the internet is that you’re competing with the whole world. How will you drive traffic to your site? If your small business has the ability to drive traffic through mass media, a website is often the perfect half step between your advertising and your store. Let your prospective cus

MAY 14, 1990 – The cover of Sports Illustrated showed a pistol being shoved into the back of a high school kid. Those were the days when an alarming trend swept this land of purple mountains, majesties, above the fruited plains.Kids were killing for tennis shoes. Remember?JUNE, 2008 – Retail in America is changing.We could blame it on the current recession, but the truth is much more interesting:Today’s young adults (18-34) spent their childhoods marinating in hype. The noise of Vegematic commercials and limited-time offers for Ginsu knives were the soundtrack of their lives. Cable TV was a friendly babysitter, shouting, “BUT WAIT! THERE’S MORE!” Upward mobility was the dominant religion. Out-of-control commercialism was an ocean that threatened to suffocate their souls.Britney Spears glittered when she walked.My sons were 7 and 10 years old when that issue of Sports Illustrated hit the newstand. Today they’re like a lot of other young men and women who grew up during the days of conspicuous consumption. They’ve quietly decided thatcheap is the new chic.Buying used clothing at a Goodwill thrift store is cool.Underpowered cars are cool.Craig’s List is cool.IKEA is cool.The new status…is not how much you spend, but how much you don't.– CBS Evening NewsCan this new trend toward minimalism and the conservation of resources be harnessed to make you money? Of course it can.But not in the way you think.You’ll find the answers you need in Austin. (Attend classes at Wizard Academy or book a day of private consulting with the Wizards of Ads.) Come.Was today's message a thinly-disguised ad for America's 21st Century Business School?Yes, it was. But doesn't the fact that I admit it make it a little easier to take?(The perceptive reader will realize that last sentence was the whole point of today's memo.)Understated fashion and transparent language are on the rise.THIS IS THE CONCLUSION OF LESSON ONERoy H. Williams

Time travel is fun.Want to learn to do it?Follow me.The year is 1608. England buzzes with William Shakespeare.Hamlet, Macbeth, and King Lear are performed to rave reviews while 44 year-old William grieves the death of his mother.A team of 47 translators works on an English translation of the Bible. Not one of them suspects their translation will remain in use 400 years into the future. In 1611 their Bible will be released as the authorized version of King James.The novel by Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quixote de La Mancha hasn't been translated into English but it’s all the rage in Spain. No one suspects that in exactly 8 years – on April 23, 1616 – Cervantes and Shakespeare will die simultaneously at twilight. No one knows each man will forever be remembered as the most celebrated voice in his language.Baltasar Gracian is a 7-year-old boy in Belmonte, Spain. He’ll grow up to become a Jesuit scholar, troublemaker and philosopher. His book, The Art of Worldly Wisdom, will sweep Europe in much the same way Benjamin Franklin’s Poor Richard’s Almanac will sweep another continent 150 years later. In 1992, Baltasar’s book will be rediscovered and spend 18 weeks on the bestseller list of a country that didn’t exist while he lived. But no one has an inkling of this. Today young Baltasar is a just a 7-year old boy playing in the dust in Spain.It’s been exactly 116 years since Christopher Columbus sailed for Queen Isabella and walked the soil of a whole new world. Today that new world is a place where conquistadors search for gold and tell tales of the Seven Cities of Cibola.No one cares about a shipload of English weirdoes and misfits who sailed over the horizon a few months ago to set up a colony in the wilderness. They’re probably dead by now anyway. And even if they’re not, nothing will ever come of it. I think someone said they decided to call their colony “Jamestown.”In exactly 361 years Neal Armstrong will do that Columbus thing again and a poet named James Dickey will complain, “There's no moon goddess now. But when men believed there was, then the moon was more important, maybe not scientifically, but more important emotionally. It was something a man had a personal relationship to, instead of its simply being a dead stone, a great ruined stone in the sky.” – Self Interviews, p. 67Are you beginning to see what I mean by Time Travel? It’s a delightful way to play. And frankly, you don’t play enough. I hope you don’t mind me saying.The key to time travel is:1.   Learn the details of a day that is past. Meet the people. Feel the buzz. Be part of their society. Become one of them.2.   From that distant vantage point, what do you imagine about our current day, knowing you will never see it?3.   Now return happily to 2008 and see how things actually turned out.If you want to take an even trippier trip:1.   Imagine yourself 20 years from now. What are your circumstances?2.   Now look back at 2008 and think about what you wish you’d done differently.You’ll be surprised how much this “Time Travel” exercise will change your priorities and alter your actions.Free the Beagle.Aroo!Roy H. Williams

When Samuel Langhorne Clemens began to write, he adopted the pen name Mark Twain, a common shout among riverboat pilots on the Mississippi river.When Sholem Rabinovich began to write, he adopted the pen name Sholem Aleichem, a common Yiddish greeting whose most accurate translation would be, “Peace be unto ya’ll” or “Peace be unto youse.”Mark Twain gave us Huckleberry Finn and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, a celebration of everyday river life in 1800s America.Sholem Aleichem gave us Tevye the Milkman and Fiddler on the Roof, a celebration of everyday Jewish life in 1800s Russia.Both men had similar styles of writing and both were known for their audacious wit. Either might have said, “A bachelor is a man who comes to work each morning from a different direction.” (But in this case it was Sholem Aleichem.)One might assume the Russian writer adopted the trademarks of the American Mark Twain to become an East European version of that famous humorist and philosopher but that assumption would be incorrect. When Sholem Aleichem came to the United States in 1905, Twain sought him out and confessed that he considered himself to be “the American Sholem Aleichem.”When Sholem Aleichem died in New York in 1916, 100,000 mourners gathered at his funeral.Instructions were left for his family and friends to “select one of my stories, one of the very merry ones, and recite it in whatever language is most intelligible to you.” “Let my name be recalled with laughter,” he added, “or not at all.” These annual readings of the wit, audacity and rich philosophy of Sholem Aleichem have continued each May to the present day, and in recent years have become open to the public.Sholem Aleichem said things few men dared to say.And he made a difference in the culture of his day.Leonard Pitts is another man like Sholem Aleichem.A columnist syndicated by the Miami Herald, Leonard Pitts first came to my attention on July 12, 2001, when Pennie handed me our newspaper and pointed to a scathing review of the just-released movie, Baby Boy. Midway through the review, Pitts began firing word bullets aimed with the precision of a champion marksman:Everybody should have a white man. Even white men should have a white man.Because when you have a white man, nothing is ever your fault. You're never required to account for your own failings or take the reins of your own destiny. The boss says, “Why haven’t you finished those reports, Bob?” and you say, “Because of the white man, sir.”I'm not here to sell you some naive nonsense that racism no longer exists. One has only to look around with open eyes to see that it continues to diminish the fiscal, physical and emotional health of African-American people. All of us are obligated to raise our voices in protest of this awful reality.But black folks are also obligated to live the fullest lives possible in the face of that reality. To live without excuses.Leonard Pitts works hard to understand the perspective of America's white majority. Are you willing to work to understand the perspectives of America's Black and Brown minorities? Are you willing, as a white person, to speak up to your white friends as boldly as Leonard Pitts spoke to the black community?Will you, as part of a cultural minority, work to understand the actions of those who frustrate you?Will you listen and contemplate and use wit and humor to open the eyes of those who don't see clearly?If so, I want you to apply for a scholarship to become one of Wizard Academy's World Changers for 2008. We're going to approach this racism thing from a whole new direction.Aroo.Roy H. Williams

American education teaches a subject vertically, narrow and deep. And the deeper one plunges into the subject, the narrower it gets. Specialization.1a. Liberal Arts1b. Literature1c. Spanish Literature1d. Spanish Literature of 1492-16811e. Miguel de Cervantes (1547-1616)1f. Don Quixote de La Mancha by Cervantes (1605)1g. Symbolism in Don QuixoteAnd then you write your master’s thesis:1h. Sancho Panza as a Figurative Symbol in Don Quixote de La ManchaOur educational system has taught us to value vertical, deductive reasoning. This is why our logic is so often binary: if-then, either-or, right-wrong. This is the logic of technology.But vertical thinking is most powerful when augmented by a horizontal viewpoint since the lateral perspective will often spy answers that lie outside the vertical path.Horizontal thinking will recognize a pattern it has seen, even when that pattern was observed in a completely unrelated field. (The cognoscenti will remember this technique as Business Problem Topology.) This “pattern recognition” often allows the horizontal thinker to correctly predict an outcome from what appears to be too little information.Intuition is unconscious, horizontal thinking.“Some people are unhappy about lateral [horizontal] thinking because they feel it threatens the validity of vertical thinking. This is not so at all. The two processes are complementary, not antagonistic. Lateral thinking enhances the effectiveness of vertical thinking by offering it more to select from. Vertical thinking multiplies the effectiveness of lateral thinking by making good use of the ideas generated.”– Edward DeBono, author of 62 books on creative thought.Purely horizontal thinking is known as daydreaming. Fantasy. Mysticism. The purely horizontal thinker has a thousand ideas but puts none of them into action. He or she sees the big picture and all its possibilities but has little interest in linear, step-by-step implementation.Purely vertical thinking leads to compliance, conformity, and a false sense of knowledge. (False because it’s often just memorization in disguise. The student knows what to do without understanding why.) The purely vertical thinker is a nit-picker, a legalist, a tight-ass.The healthy mind is capable of switching from vertical to horizontal thought and back again.Problem solving is horizontal thinking adjusted by vertical analysis. But the implementation of that solution will require step-by-step, vertical action modified by horizontal adjustments as the need arises.Read his books and you’ll recognize Lee Iacocca as a horizontal thinker who implements his ideas vertically.Iacocca sees patterns, then takes sequential action to accomplish what he has seen in his mind.“When you stop to think about it, most of the great companies of our times began as upstarts – little Davids taking on big Goliaths.” – Lee Iacocca, Where Have All the Leaders Gone? p. 159   Horizontal thought is how Iacocca rescued Chrysler from the brink of disaster. It's how Peter Ueberroth organized the wildly successful Los Angeles Olympics and generated a surplus of 250 million dollars. It's how Amazon.com and eBay came to be. It's how the Prius and the iPod were born.Wizard Academy teaches you how to see the answers that lie outside the vertical perspective.Are you a little David? Do you want to learn the techniques of the great innovators?Come to Wizard Academy and we’ll teach you how to defeat the Goliath in your life.Yours,Roy H. Williams

I’ve never seen a business fail due to reaching the wrong people. But if you listen to advertising sales reps, “reaching the right people” will solve all your problems.And guess who has exactly the right people for you?The conversation usually goes something like this: the sales rep says, “Tell me, who is your customer?”“Blah, blah, blah.”“Really? That’s exactly who we reach! What a fit! It’s like a hand in glove, a marriage made in heaven! We reach your exact customer profile!”Here’s an idea. Call every advertising sales office in your city and tell them you want to advertise with them. Let’s see how many of them say, “Sorry, your customer isn’t who we reach.”The myth of “the right people” is a myth every business owner wants to believe because it keeps them from having to make uncomfortable changes. “Our selection isn’t off-target, we’re just reaching the wrong people.” “Our prices aren’t too high, we’re just reaching the wrong people.” Traffic isn’t down because our ads are flaccid, we’re just reaching the wrong people.”In truth, “the right people” are easy to find.They’re everywhere.And they know each other.And they talk.The right message works regardless of which media delivers it.The wrong message disappoints you and your customer alike.When I travel and speak publicly, business owners often grab my arm to tell me the demographic profiles of their customers. They say things like, “My customer is an upper-middle income female between 35 and 54.”This is useful information for an ad writer. But what these business owners hope I’ll be able to tell them is which media will work best for their business. “Is it cable TV? Network TV? Newspaper? Billboards? Huh? What do you think about PR? Is it the internet? Is internet the key? What about radio? Does anyone listen to the radio anymore? Which media should I buy?”My answer never changes. “They call it mass media for a reason; it reaches the masses. The successful use of mass media requires a message that matters to a large percentage of the public. Tell me your message and I’ll tell you which media is best suited to deliver it for you.”Is there such a thing as targeted media? Of course there is. If you sell a specialized product like dental supplies, I never suggest mass media. There are a variety of ways you can target dentists:1. Letters and catalogs mailed to dentists.2. Dental industry trade magazines.3. Salespeople calling dentists on the phone.4. Participation in trade shows and other events to which dentists are invited.5. Banner ads on dental websites.6. Keyword purchases of jargon relevant only to dentists.7. Search engine optimization of your dental supplies website.8. Free samples of your product shipped to dentists.9. Logo-emblazoned gifts that might be used by the staff each day in the typical dental office.But if your product is less highly specialized than dental supplies, airplane parts or industrial glue, you’ll do well to craft a message for the masses and deliver it through mass media.Media salespeople are mistaken however, when they use such terms as “our reader,” “our viewer” and “our listener” since these terms make it seem as though that reader, listener or viewer can be reached through them and them alone. In truth, every reader, listener or viewer is available to you through any of several different media outlets. None of us are reached through only a single media outlet.As I write this, one of my media buyers is wrapping up a 52-week, citywide radio schedule in a medium-sized city. This year he purchased a significantly different list of stations than the group we purchased last year and saved $59,000 in the process. But we’re reaching as many people as we did last year and with just as much repetition.Why not go ahead and spend the additional $59,000 you ask? Because there is no radio station that can offer us a significant number of listeners we aren’t already reaching. The expenditure of additional dollars would only increase the repetition of our message among listeners we’re already reaching on other stations. And we already have enough repetition.Can you think of something you might be able to do with an extra $59k?Come to Wizard Academy.Roy H. Williams

Here's the Pattern: When times are tough and customers are scarce, business owners buckle down and try to become even better at the things they do well. They do this because they trust the Guide pattern, “This has always worked in the past.”Perhaps you're doing the same.But following the Guide pattern in a declining market won’t take you where want to go, since staying who you are won’t expand your customer base.To grow your sales volume you must increase your market share. You must attract those customers who, in the past, have chosen not to do business with you. But those customers won’t make a new decision about your business until you give them new information. As long as you keep doing what you’ve always done (and saying what you've always said,) they’ll keep making the decision they’ve always made.They’ll keep buying somewhere else.To grow, you must expand your identity. Add to your message. Appeal to additional customers.The Challenge pattern of new circumstances demands that you choose a new Guide pattern.Leaders usually cling to old Guide patterns in times of stress. This is why challengers often overtake leaders during times of upheaval. The leaders were reluctant to reinvent themselves.For more than a quarter century I’ve made my living dethroning market leaders and setting my clients in their places. And in all those years I’ve never seen a category leader do anything but what they do best. This predictability makes them easy to defeat.The successful challenger is always willing to adopt a new guide pattern and stretch beyond the comfort zone.A few weeks ago I wrote, “If you dominate your business category and you’re struggling to stay on top, my experience tells me you probably don’t have the courage to make the necessary changes that would allow you to move to the next level. So you might be wasting a plane ticket to Austin.”Now you know why I wrote it.If You Feel It's Time to Reinvent Your Business:Step 1: Do exactly what you fear a competitor might do. Be your own competition.Step 2: Evaluate your advertising. If your messages have been transactional (full of facts and details) build a relational offering for your customer. If your messages have been relational (service and commitment based) create a transactional package.Step 3: Ignore those well-meaning friends who will accuse you of having lost your focus.Step 4: Release unhappy team members to go where they can be happy or they'll torpedo your plan with half-hearted implementation.Step 5: Advertise aggressively. “Aggressive” doesn’t require a big budget. It requires a big message. In the words of Robert Stephens, “Advertising is a tax you pay for being unremarkable.”The more unremarkable your message, the more ad money you have to spend. Embrace a remarkable message and you'll be surprised how little money is required to spread the word.If you need some help crafting a remarkable message, come to Austin.We're good at it.Roy H. Williams

Half your brain sees a hierarchy.Deductive reasoning is a product of this.Vertical. Sequential. Objective. Scientific. Hard facts. Details.“Be for what is.”The other half sees connectedness.Intuition is a direct result.Horizontal. Chaotic. Subjective. Relevant. Relationships. Big picture.“Recognize the pattern.”Intuition is a form of pattern recognition. Wordlessly it whispers, “I’ve seen this behavior before. I know what happens next.”We call these whispers “hunches,” “gut feelings”, “premonitions.”Obsessive Compulsive Disorder is what happens when these whispers get too loud.We are pleased when a mystery is solved.Another way of saying this is, “We are pleased when the Challenge pattern resolves into the Guide pattern.”That’s when things come together and “make sense.”The pieces of a jigsaw puzzle can be interlocked to form a rectangle. The correct assembly of these uniquely shaped pieces is the Challenge pattern.The photograph on the front of the box is the Guide pattern. Consequently, the image fragment on the face of each puzzle piece gives us a clue where that piece belongs.The challenge pattern is what we’re trying to solve.The guide pattern tells us where things belong.Imagine how much harder it would be to solve a jigsaw puzzle if you had never seen the completed picture on the box.The choices you face each day are your Challenge pattern.Your Guide pattern in life – the picture on the box – is your schema, your worldview, your expectations. Your Guide pattern is influenced by your culture and customs, training and religion. Your Guide pattern is influenced by what you read, how you play, and whom you admire.As your life unfolds across the tapestry of time, your desires are simply your life’s attempt to satisfy the Guide pattern.Change the guide pattern and you change your desires. Change the guide pattern and you change your life.Here’s another example. In any scientific experiment, there's a Guide pattern called the “control” group. The challenge pattern is represented by the “experimental” group.(I fear you won’t find much else written about Challenge patterns and Guide patterns because I made these terms up to explain some things in my mind.)Challenge patterns and Guide patterns, the calm before the storm and the morning after, labyrinths and fractals are all expressions of Archetypal Patterns.Archetypal patterns are the Guide patterns of every happy moment. Learn to employ these patterns and you'll have the ability to create greater and more frequent success. But beware. When an archetypal pattern becomes obvious, it becomes a cliché.Next week I'll tell you how to discover archetypal patterns you can use as Guide patterns to launch yourself to new heights in business and the arts.Roy H. Williams

Ten years ago, Eric Rhoads asked me to appear on the cover of Radio Ink in a suit of armor. Since Eric is one of my closest friends and a major supporter of Wizard Academy, I agreed to do it for him.Since 1998, my Wizard of Ads column has appeared in every issue of Radio Ink, more than 200 in all. The columns I write for Eric are never released to another outlet.Today I’m making an exception to that rule because I believe 2008 will be a major growing-up year for radio and readers of the Monday Morning Memo need to understand what’s going on.The following is an excerpt from my column in the current issue:Syndication came to television 50 years ago. Networks like ABC, CBS and NBC offered local TV stations better shows than they were able to produce themselves. And these better shows were cheaper than local productions. The viewers won. The stations won. Television became much more profitable. National advertisers loved placing ads in hot, national shows.In the past, national shows have been the exception in radio, rather than the rule.They’re about to be the rule.I predict that half of America’s morning drive jocks will soon be replaced by 10 or 12 syndicated morning shows beamed in from somewhere else. This will happen in other dayparts as well.Frankly, I’m in favor of it.Wait! I hear the voices of broadcasters clamoring, “But radio is local. Our listeners want local. Syndication is anti-radio.”I respond, “Listen to the people of your town. Are they saying, 'We don’t want Desperate Housewives, Grey’s Anatomy, American Idol, and Lost! We want the local TV shows?'”“Are they saying, 'We don’t want Spiderman, Pirates of the Caribbean, and Lord of the Rings in our theaters! We want the local movies?'”“Are they saying, 'We don’t want Rush Limbaugh and Howard Stern, we want a local political pundit and a local shock jock?'”Ten years ago, radio’s consolidators cut costs by cutting the fat. Then, when pressured for more profits, they did the only thing they knew to do; they cut deeper, but this time into muscle. Radio was crippled. Occasionally they cut arteries and radio stations began dying. Wall Street prices dropped cold and hard, icy hail on a barren landscape.There were plenty of heroic efforts in the emergency room. Not all radio group heads were selfish. Not all were shortsighted and stupid. I’ve watched from the sidelines as good men and women did the best they could under impossible circumstances.Now radio is going private again. Deconsolidation has begun. The age of syndication is upon us.Don’t be afraid of it.   #   #   #   #Now I hear the voices of Monday Memo readers, asking, “What about satellite radio? What about the iPod? Aren't these eroding radio's audience?”Sure, these new technologies, along with online attractions like youtube, myspace and facebook, and video game platforms like the Sony Playstation and the Nintendo Wii have added to the list of attention-gobbling gadgets that began with CDs, DVDs and cell phones back in the dark ages. In short, Americans have too many gadgets and too little time to play with them all.The net result is that media is getting trickier to buy. But make no mistake, broadcast radio remains a powerful tool for local business. As soon as I find a better value, I'll let you know.Keep in mind that(1.) my consulting firm doesn't work by the hour and(2.) I don't charge according to the size of the client's ad budget, and(3.) my income is adjusted annually according to the growth of my client.The moment any new media has the potential to be a more efficient use of my client's ad dollars, I'll be on it like a duck on a June bug. My future depends on it.Now chin up, eyes forward.You're going to have a great week, I promise.Yours,Roy H. Williams

Socrates was right, “The unexamined life is not worth living.”Most of us have moments when we ask, “Am I happy? Is this what I want to do? Am I making a difference? Would I be missed if I were gone?”Introspection is like medicine. It’s beneficial in small doses but an overdose will leave you self-absorbed and depressed.My policy to write about you, not me.My goal is to give you interesting things to think about.My hope is that your life will be made better because of me.People who perceive these things through my writings assume I’m a sensitive person who will look deep into their eyes and say profound things. They’re always disappointed when they meet me. In truth, I am introverted, vain, vulgar, and socially awkward.But God likes me anyway.Strangely, I’m a powerful public speaker. This is due to what psychologists call my auxiliary personality, a hidden part of me that walks on stage when it’s show time. The bigger the crowd, the taller my auxiliary. The real me always watches from offstage. “Gosh, he seems to be doing pretty well. Let’s hope he doesn’t say something I’ll regret.”Obviously, I’ve set my policy aside today.I risk not achieving my goal.But I haven’t given up my hope,I want your life to be better.That’s why I write books.That’s why I founded a *business school.That’s why I’m teaching a free, 2-day class for small business owners.If your dreams are bigger than you areand you have the courage of a lion,the ferocity of a tiger,and the determination of a turtle,send an email to [email protected] her your city, your business category, and your current, annual sales volume. Tell her what you believe to be holding you back. We can seat no more than 99 business owners in Tuscan Hall and I want to give these seats to the men and women I believe will benefit the most.If you dominate your business category and you’re struggling to stay on top, my experience tells me you probably don’t have the courage to make the necessary changes that would allow you to move to the next level. So you might be wasting a plane ticket to Austin.But if you’re currently doing less than 10 percent of the business in your product or service category, I have a long and happy track record of helping people just like you.I’m going to see 99 people enjoy blazing growth in this soggy, wet economy because I gave them a day and a half of my life. The workshop is called, How to Make Business Good When Times are Bad.I’m charging nothing for it. Lunch will be provided but you’ll have to be in Austin, Texas, April 14 and 15. And you’ll have to be invited. The first step toward getting invited is to email Tamara.Remember what Socrates said about the unexamined life? He could just as easily have said, “The unexamined business isn’t worth owning.”Come to Austin and examine your business.Socrates also said, “Education is the kindling of a flame, not the filling of a vessel.”I don’t plan to fill your head in Austin. I plan to set you on fire.I think Socrates would be proud.Roy H. Williams

“What will he write of us, Cissy, this young man who has taken it upon himself to tell our stories?”“I’m not a mind reader, Alice.”“He never met us. He didn’t know us. He has seen us only through the lens of books he little more than scanned.”“He will write what he will write.”“But I’m so tired of it all, these writers who remember only the scandals.”“I don’t think he’s like that. His book will be historical fiction.”“That’s even worse.”“Perhaps.”“Historical fiction. What does that mean?”“He plans to tell the tale we hid from the world, Alice, not the tales that have been told before.”“Good god, you don’t mean…”“Yes. You, me and Ellie. Cal, Willie and Nick.”“Please tell me you’re only being mean.”“Alice, it’s happening. Face it. He pieced it all together.”“You and I were friends once, Cissy.”“Yes.”“But not anymore.”“No, not anymore.”–   Alice Roosevelt Longworth (1884 – 1980)–   Eleanor Medill “Cissy” Patterson (1884 – 1948)AAs I write the words of Cissy and Alice, they step from an unchanging past into a myriad of possible futures. They step tentatively at first, testing the waters of time with pointed toes as though the temperature might be unkind.Then they rush laughing into life, dancing on the waters as they understand the opportunity they've been given.I’m writing the chaotic story of the intersecting lives of six persons. Dozens of books have been written about five of the six, though no author has ever noticed that all five were actors in a single play.The sixth invididual, Cal Carrington, was also real and his relationship with the five was exactly as I will describe.My novel begins in 1884 and ends in 1948. Teddy Roosevelt makes an occasional appearance, although he is not a principal character.The encounters and relationships I've woven together were sucked from the dark archives of Time Magazine, the diaries of neighbors, books written by other authors and my own imagination. I've been researching the sacred six since February, 2001.I believe their story would have been told long ago except that Alice Roosevelt would have sued for slander. And since Alice outlived the other five, their amazing story died with her.Until now.Roy H. Williams

2008 is shaping up to be an unhappy year for most product and service categories. If your year-to-date numbers are trending ahead of 2007, I salute you.Today’s Monday Morning Memo is for the remaining 96 percent of American business owners.Here’s what I want you to do:1. Write in a vertical list the names of every competitor you face in your chosen product/service category. If you need help remembering them, look in the Yellow Pages. This should take no more than 10 to 12 minutes. Don’t leave anyone out.2. Write next to each name an estimate of that company’s sales volume in the category in which you compete.3. Add your own name and sales volume to the list.4. Total the dollars that you’ve estimated will be spent in your product/service category this year in your trade area. This is your Market Potential.5. Tell us the name of your city or trade area and its approximate population.6. Email all this information to [email protected] for the “Treasure” part:1.   I’m going to ask my market research department to verify or modify the snapshot you’ve given us of your Market Potential. You'll receive the results by email.2.   Ninety-nine of you will be invited to be my guests in Austin April 14-15 for the unveiling of an all-new presentation and workshop: How to Make Business Good When Times are Bad.  3.   This is a session I’ll soon be presenting to business owners from coast to coast at $25,000 per market visit. But 99 of you will get to experience it in Austin for free.You’ll learn to identify your Limiting Factors, the things that've been holding you back.You’ll learn to evaluate your Competitive Environment, the key to good strategy.You’ll learn to develop Unifying Principles, the secret of esprit de corps.You’ll learn to leverage your Defining Characteristics, the essence of persuasive ads.You’ll learn Wanek’s Ways to significantly increase the believability of your advertising, your sales presentations, positioning statements, tag lines and slogans. (There are only 6 things you can do. I'll teach you all 6, courtesy of my partner, Tom Wanek.*)You’ll return home equipped to take your place among that happy 4 percent of business owners who are trending ahead of last year.Interested?Get started on your list of competitors and sales volumes. Be sure to tell us the name of your trade area and its population. We need to have this information as soon as possible.Have a great week.Yours,Roy H. Williams

Answer: If you knew, it wouldn't be a blind spot.Accelerate the performance of your business in 2008. Find your blind spot and fix it.There are 7 common blind spots with 4 common causes.The most common blind spots have to do with…1. customer profiling.What traits do your customers have in common other than the fact they all buy from you? Are you seeing your customers as they really are, or are you seeing them as you wish them to be? False profiling leads to expensive mistakes.2. reputation.Consider the people who don’t buy from you. Are they buying elsewhere because they haven’t heard about your company, or is it because they have? I’ve never met a business owner willing to believe their company had a bad reputation.3. relevance.Most “unique selling propositions” are irrelevant to the customer. Are your ads answering questions no one was asking?4. location.Yesterday’s right location is tomorrow’s wrong one. Has the future arrived and left you behind in a weird part of town? Or did you fall into the happy trap of cheap rent only to find yourself invisible?5. staff.How consistently is your staff delivering the experience you’ve crafted for your customer? The fact that your staff is perky and happy doesn’t always mean they’re doing their jobs. Have you been confusing attitude with performance? Are you one of those big-hearted bosses who will excuse incompetence as long as the employee seems loyal and sincere?6. price credibility.Do you know the prices of your competitors in your product or service category? Or do your customers know more than you? If you say to me, “I don’t worry about what the competition is doing, I just worry about what we’re doing,” I swear I’ll slap you.7. media myths.Are you anxious to find a more effective media? If so, you’ve got really bad ads. I’ve never seen a company fail because they were using the wrong media or reaching the wrong people. But I’ve seen thousands fail because they were saying the wrong things. A powerful message will produce results in any media.The most common causes of blind spots are…1. entitlement.Do you believe your business deserves to grow each year simply because it’s had another birthday?2. preference and denial.Do you mistakenly believe that other peope think like you do? Are you so focused on your goals that you can’t see reality? Have you attended one-too-many positive thinking seminars? If so, you’re on dangerous ground, amigo. “Well, that can’t be true because, well, it just can’t.” Is this really your answer?3. misinformation.Do you usually believe what you’re told? A dinner companion says to you, “The food here is terrible. I’m never coming back.” But when the smiling manager arrives at the table and asks, “How was everything?” your companion replies, “It was great.” Are the people around you telling you what you want to hear? Are you part of a group of business friends who telephone each other for false reassurance?4. risk aversion.Did you work hard to “build up your business” and now you’re taking it easy a little, enjoying the fruits of your labor? Congratulations. That warm glow you’re feeling means you’re about to be toast. If you’re not acutely aware of your competitive environment, you’re coasting, losing momentum and in danger of being overtaken. You became a self-made man or woman because you took big chances when you had little to lose, right? But now that life is good, you abandoned this aggressive behavior and expect good things to happen because “you earned it.” Remember the tired old elephant whose butt you kicked to get where you are today? The new elephant is you.Am I your enemy or your friend?This was a dangerous memo for me to write because folks tend to be sensitive about their weaknesses. So if at any time you felt belittled, insulted or offended while reading this memo, there’s a pretty good chance we found your blind spot.Still friends, right?Yours,Roy H. Williams

Courage… Curiosity… Intuition.In the biggest news since Tiger Woods won the U.S. Open a beagle has taken top honors at Westminster for the first time in history. Arooo! Aroo-Aroooooo!In the happy little village where I spend a lot of time, beagles are the symbol of curiosity and intuition, reliable guides to success in 2008.Haven’t you heard? Maintaining the status quo will yield a decline in 2008 for most business categories.The February 8 issue of the Wall Street Journal had this to say:“Retailers turned in their worst monthly sales results in nearly five years, and big chains appeared to be girding themselves for a prolonged slowdown in consumer spending by announcing plans to close hundreds of stores and cut thousands of jobs.”“Even gift-card redemptions, which were expected to give January sales figures a bigger lift, instead offered a glimpse at just how strapped consumers are. Wal-Mart Stores Inc. yesterday noted that redemptions were below its expectations, and said consumers were holding onto the cards longer — or using them to buy groceries rather than treats like electronics.”The beagle called Intuition might seem to be a chaser of rabbits, a rowdy without decorum, a runaway balloon on a windy day, but the joy of the beagle is neither random nor reckless. Her path connects the dots of an image too big to see, a pattern you’ll recognize when you’ve climbed higher than where you stand.Do you want to climb higher? Follow your beagle. She'll lead you to success.2008 will be a grand adventure if you'll raise an intuitive ear and listen to what's blowing on the wind.Do you plan to run with the beagles or stay on the porch?Arooo! Aroo-Arooooooo!Roy H. Williams

1. See your destination in your mind.“When you don’t know where you’re going, any road will get you there.”– White Rabbit2. Start walking.“The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.”– Lao Tzu (604 BC – 531 BC)3. Think ahead as you walk.“It’s like driving a car at night. You can see only as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.” – E.L. Doctorow    4. Don’t quit walking.“Don't wait. Where do you expect to get by waiting? Doing is what teaches you. Doing is what leads to inspiration. Doing is what generates ideas. Nothing else, and nothing less.” – Daniel Quinn5. Make no deadlines.“Patience is the best remedy for every trouble.”– Titus Maccius Plautus (254 BC – 184 BC)“I am extraordinarily patient, provided I get my own way in the end.”– Margaret Thatcher, April 4, 19896. Look back at the progress you made each day.“God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning – the sixth day.” Genesis 1:317. If evening finds you at the same place you were this morning, take a step before you lay down.The magic isn’t in the size of your actions, but in the relentlessness of them. “It is better to burn the candle at both ends, and in the middle, too, than to put it away in the closet and let the mice eat it.” – Henry Van Dyke    Never let a day pass without making, at the very least, a tiny bit of progress. Do NOT tell yourself you’ll make up for it tomorrow. (That seductive lie is the kiss of death.) Make a phone call. Lick a stamp. Correct a misspelled word. Something. Anything.You realize I'm talking about business, not hiking, right?A second common mistake is to get these steps out of order. If you skip Step 1, “See your destination,” and go straight to step 2, “Start walking,” you’ll be a wanderer, a drifter on the ocean of life, sadly on your way to lying beneath a tombstone that says, “He Had Potential.”Even more dangerous is to go from Step 1, “See your destination,” directly to Step 3, “Think ahead,” without ever doing Step 2, “Start walking.” These are the people who never get started. Analysis paralysis. Lots of anxiety and plans and meetings and revisions and studies and evaluation and research can make you think you're getting somewhere when you're not.Gen. George S. Patton said it best, “A good plan today is better than a perfect plan tomorrow.” In other words, there is no perfect plan. Shut up and get started.Visitors to Tuscan Hall will recall a beautiful stairway that leads into a wall, then does a 180 halfway up to finish in exactly the opposite direction. At the top of those stairs a magnificent catwalk runs the entire length of the building to a gallery of fine art overlooking the floor below.This is the Journey of Life.If you find yourself headed in the wrong direction, you can always correct your way.But only if you know your destination.Have a great week.Roy H. Williams

I was freshly married to Pennie and barely old enough to see over the dash of a car but I wanted to show her the magical places of my childhood, so we saved up enough money for 3 tanks of gas and made the 200-mile drive from Broken Arrow to Ardmore, Oklahoma.I never knew my father’s father. A couple of photographs and a pocket watch are all that remain of the original Roy H. Williams. But my mother’s dad I knew. Roy Pylant (PIE-lant) was the iceman in Ardmore for more than half a century.My career as an iceman began one afternoon when I was five. A restaurant called for 100 pounds of crushed ice and I went with Daddy Py to deliver it. I watched him dump the ice into the restaurant’s icemaker and then I carried the empty canvas bag back to the truck. I wasn’t big enough to do much else.As I walked away I heard, “Looks like you got you a new helper.”“That’s my grans-ton Little Roy. He saves me a lotta steps.”Daddy Py couldn’t say “grandson” without putting a T in it.Daddy Py’s house had chickens and a little stone washhouse and a garage from which you could see the edge of the world if you climbed up onto its flat tar roof.Once, when I was nine, Daddy Py and I took a break from crushing ice to go with Larkin from Larkin’s Bait Shop. He needed to check his trot lines and asked if we wanted to go along. Trot lines were illegal, of course, but Larkin knew how to hide them so he never got caught. He got a big catfish that day and I got my first ride in a motorboat. I also saw Tucker Tower. It was even cooler than the garage at Daddy Py’s house.Summer after summer, Daddy Py and I would roll out of bed early, drive to the ice plant and slide 300-pound blocks of ice onto his ‘65 Chevy long-narrow pickup. Roll the tarp over the ice, drive to Lake Murray, crush and bag the ice, toss it quick onto the truck, cover it again with the tarp and deliver it to the convenience stores.I was good at it.As a child, it never occurred to me that my family spent summer vacations at Daddy Py’s because we didn’t have the money to go anywhere else. I figured we went there because it was the grandest place on earth. And Mama Py took care of us all.Back then they didn’t let you become a grandmother unless you could cook and Mama Py was a grandmother of five. Her food glowed like the sword Excalibur. Dopers would give up drugs for it. Ministers praised it from the pulpit. Shakespeare wrote sonnets about it.Mama Py had a vegetable garden. Bright rays of color would shine from her kitchen windows as she prepared tomatoes, okra and corn on the cob with bowls of beans and fried potatoes. Her kitchen table glimmered like a leprechaun’s pot of gold.Then Daddy Py would arrive with a tinfoil bundle and 2 mysterious jars of liquid. The quart Pepsi bottle with the screw-on cap contained a thin, grey-brown au jus, redolent with course black pepper. The baby food jar contained an equally thin, red liquid that sparkled with what appeared to be cayenne. The tinfoil contained sliced brisket. Airplanes buzzed the house to get a sniff of it. This was Lieutenant McKerson’s barbecue.We delivered ice to him every morning.The sidewalk in front of McKerson's was broken. The building had no air conditioner. A tightly sprung screen door traded magical aromas for outside air. There was a hole worn in the linoleum in front of the serving counter, its edges smooth, tapering down to a mirror of grey cement, the silent work of a million shoes standing, twisting, turning to leave with their tinfoil treasures and sparkling jars. I looked into that mirror and saw the soul of America.And it was beautiful.Rich men had tried for decades to get McKerson’s recipe by offering to franchise his little place, but McKerson had no interest. He cooked for the tired, the poor, the huddled masses yearning to breathe free.Each morning I’d hold open the screen door and Daddy Py would plunge into the mist with a 12-and-a-half-pound block of ice. I never saw McKerson’s face. These early morning hours had him boiling Pepsi bottles and baby food jars in a 25-gallon aluminum pot. I saw only the white apron strings tied behind his neck and back. He didn't turn to see who we were. Our delivery of the ice was a morning ritual worn as smooth as the hole in the linoleum. We were gone in less than ten seconds. Ice is an impatient master.One day as we drove away, I asked, “What branch of the service was Lieutenant McKerson in?”“He was never in the military. His mama just liked the name.”A decade later I sat with Pennie, my young wife, across the street from Lieutenant McKerson’s in Ardmore. Daddy Py and Mama Py were dead. I told Pennie about the Pepsi bottles, the baby food jars and the soul of America. We were gazing in silence at the tired little building when an ancient man emerged in a glowing white apron. He hung an Open sign on a hook outside. We watched as he went back in.I sat and thought.Then I drove away, unwilling to taint the taste of the memory.Roy H. Williams 

In the language of academics:The central executive of working memory is the new battleground for marketers. Writers are successfully surprising Broca, thereby gaining the momentary attention of the public, but an absence of salience remains.In the language of newscasters:Are your ads gaining the attention of the public but failing to get results? Find out why and learn exactly what you can do about it. Stay tuned for complete details. (Insert commercial break here.)In the language of the street:Ads have gotten more creative, but they haven’t gotten more convincing. This sucks for advertisers and the public isn’t helped by it, either.In the language of clarity:Can your product be differentiated?Can you point out that difference quickly?Can you explain why the difference matters?This is effective marketing.To differentiate your product powerfully and clearly:1.   See it though the eyes of the public. (Insiders have too much knowledge.)2.   Ignore everything that doesn’t matter.3.   Focus on what the public actually cares about.4.   Say it in the fewest possible words.5.   Close the loopholes by anticipating the customer’s unspoken questions.Have a great week.Roy H. Williams