Wizard of Ads Monday Morning Memo

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 customer get to know you online.It’s worked well for me.Roy H. Williams

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 Tamara@WizardofAds.com.Tell 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