Wizard of Ads Monday Morning Memo

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 messages that had never been heard. Everyone thought I was a great copywriter, but they were wrong. I was a great message-finder.When I finally wrapped my head around the fact that success wasn’t determined by the “rightness” of my audience, the loyalty of my audience, the size of my audience or the cleverness of my copy, I began to sell everyone I met. I knew all I had to do was dig until I found a message worth sharing. And if the advertiser didn’t have a message worth telling, I had to convince them to create one or prepare them for a life of mediocrity.What I said to them made sense. My prospects were sold on me long before I was sold on them.I knew I could grow the business if the business owner would only let me. When prospects didn’t want to meet with me, I no longer felt rejection. I felt pity for them. And if they were so unfortunate as to hurt my feelings I would track down their smallest competitor and make that competitor their worst nightmare.People say I have a big ego. But in truth I’m shy and easily wounded. I learned how to make advertising work because I was unable to face my clients when it didn’t.And now you know.Roy H. Williams

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