Wizard of Ads Monday Morning Memo

The bottom-rung loser in one town can move to another town and often become the king of his category. All it takes is weak competitors. I've seen it happen a dozen times.Whether you dominate your marketplace won't be determined solely by the strength of your advertising. It will be determined partly by the strength of your competitors.How good are you at what you do? How good are they?There are 4 factors that determine business success. The most important of these, competitive environment, is the factor most often ignored. The reason, I suppose, is that business owners feel they can do nothing about it. So they ignore their competitors.But their customers don't.The ability to measure your strength objectively and compare it to the strength of your competitors is essential to strategic planning.This is why Wizard Academy is developing a six-sigma Customer Experience Index, a patented instrument that will allow you to know – precisely and objectively– how you compare to each of your competitors locally. The same instrument will also compare your scores to national averages for your category in a number of critical customer touch-points. Sound interesting? Stay tuned. A Beta version of the instrument will be released in Summer '06.Today we'll take a brief look at the four factors that govern business success. (In weeks to come we'll zoom in for a closer examination of each.) In order of importance they are:1. Competitive Environment (strength of competitors)2. Business Model (strategy. creation of customer expectations.)3. Operational Execution (delivery of what was promised to the customer.)4. Message Development (total business communication, including ad writing, décor, media planning, etc.)When released, the Customer Experience Index will objectively measure what had previously been unmeasurable.And you're the first to know.Roy H. Williams

I was in the shower when my cell phone started ringing. Pennie answered it for me. It was my partner Jeff Eisenberg.Dripping, I took the phone. “Yo. Jefferson.”“I'm sending you an article from The Economist. It's something I've heard you talk about a hundred times.”“What is it?”“You know who Peter Drucker is?”“Management guy.”“Yeah. The story tells how his bestselling book, the one containing the most detailed, step-by-step instructions, is the one nobody reads anymore. The Drucker books they're studying in all the big colleges today are the ones that were poorly received at first and didn't sell very well. You talked to me about this sort of thing on the day we met.”“I remember. 'The loneliest people are the ones ahead of their time.'”Ludwig von Beethoven knew this outsider phenomenon well. Many of the musical compositions we consider to be his greatest today were panned by the critics of his time. Even his own musicians were confused by them. When the famed violinist Radicati asked Beethoven about these pieces he replied, “Oh, those are not for you, but for a later age.”We are that later age.Thankfully, Ludwig von Beethoven didn't let the dullness of the public palate affect what he chose to create. In other words, Ludy didn't pander to the finger-snapping jingle crowd.In my mind, I ask Ludwig why he doesn't try to write the kind of music that sells. I see him there. He looks quietly at me for a moment, then curls a lip, looks at the ground and spits. Then he looks back up at me. After a moment's hesitation I nod.But I'm not the only one nodding.“When a true genius appears in this world, you may know him by this sign, that the dunces are all in confederacy against him.” – Jonathan Swift, author of Gulliver's Travels“Great spirits have often encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds.” – Albert Einstein“Funeral by funeral, science makes progress.” – Paul Samuelson. Yes, even scientists who are ahead of their time are rejected by their peers.The magnificent Emily Dickinson wrote with complete confidence that her words would never be read. It was only when her family looked in her bureau drawer on the day she died that they found 1,700 poems that would quickly be ranked among the greatest ever written.Emily Dickinson knew a freedom not felt by other writers. And it made her words soar. Feel them cut like shimmering blades:FAME is a fickle foodUpon a shifting plate,Whose table once a Guest, but notThe second time, is set.Whose crumbs the crows inspect,And with ironic cawFlap past it to the Farmer's corn;Men eat of it and die.Emily Dickinson was like Beethoven in that she had no need for public praise. She wrote for herself, an audience of one. Study the lives of the Great Ones and you'll find this to be a common characteristic among them.Cyril Connolly said it best: “Better to write for yourself and have no public, than to write for the public and have no self.”I believe Peter Drucker, Jonathan Swift and Albert Einstein would agree.Ludy Von would, too.Emily says she's in.How about you? Do you have something new and different to say?Are you willing to write for an audience of one?Roy H. Williams

Great ads can be either product-specific or store-specific. Bad ads are generally category-specific. And then there are franchise ads.Franchise ads build the master brand. The hope of every franchisee is that the ads provided by the franchisor will generate enough brand magnetism to pull customers into their store. Due to the fact that a franchisor can afford to create a higher quality ad campaign than the typical local merchant, this strategy often succeeds.Category-specific ads are written broadly enough to fit every advertiser in a category. A transparent fabric of smoothly woven clichés, a category-specific ad is a generalized template into which one merely inserts a store name and address. “All you have to do is fill in the blanks.” But remember: Ads that fit everyone don't work very well for anyone. These were once called institutional ads. I do not recommend them.Product-specific ads benefit every retailer who sells the product, but they aren't really about the retailer at all. They're about the product. This is why the independent retailer should question whether or not to take the manufacturer's fifty cents to run their product-specific ads. Are they really paying for half of your advertising, or are you paying for half of theirs? Only when the co-op requirements are extremely flexible do I recommend that independent retailers accept the so-called “free money” offered by manufacturers. If you're paying half the cost, be sure at least half the message is about you.Store-specific ads are the foundation of local branding, but to write them requires intimate, detailed research on the part of an expert ad writer. Rarely will a good, store-specific ad fit another advertiser in the same category. The story I'm about to tell you is true. I've changed only the name of the store, the town, and the vegetable:Heisenberg's Jewelers had been in the same building on Main Street in Cabbage Valley for 105 years. A facelift 7 years earlier had given the store white carpet, walnut paneling and a huge chandelier in a high, domed ceiling. Heisenberg's was the Sistine Chapel of jewelry stores. Not a problem, except that Cabbage Valley is the turnip capital of the world, a little farming community of about 45,000 people. Even the wealthiest of Cabbage Valley's farmers felt they weren't dressed well enough to enter that store. Heisenberg's was truly an intimidating place.“You need to understand who our customer is,” my client told me as soon as I arrived. “Our customer is a 40 year-old woman with money. Upscale. Very upscale. Well dressed. Always buys the best. That's our customer. That's who you need to target.” This was in mid-October. I had been hired by Heisenberg's to help save Christmas because if they had another season as bad as the previous six, they were going to have to close their doors in January.“Let's get something straight,” I told them. “There's no handle I can crank that will spit out 40 year-old rich women. I'm going to have to write ads that appeal to men or you're going to have to find another way to make a living.” It's statements like those that separate consultants from salesmen.This is the radio ad that saved Heisenberg's:“Ladies, many of you will be fortunate enough this Christmas to find a small, but beautifully wrapped package under your tree bearing a simple gold seal that says 'Heisenberg's.' Now you and I both know there's jewelry in the box. But the man who put it there for you is trying desperately to tell you that you are more precious than diamonds, more valuable than gold, and very, very special. You see, he could have gone to a department store and bought department store jewelry, or picked up something at the mall like all the other husbands. But the men who come to Heisenberg's aren't trying to get off cheap or easy. Men who come to Heisenberg's believe their wives deserve the best. And whether they spend 99 dollars or 99 hundred, the message is the same: Men who come to Heisenberg's are still very much in love… We just thought you should know.”That ad was delivered slowly and thoughtfully with style and grace. No hurry. No street address. No store hours. No phone number. We simply told listeners what they already knew about Heisenberg's but made them feel differently about it. What we said in essence was, “If your husband voluntarily came to this scarily expensive store, he must really be in love with you.” It worked like magic.Throughout the month of December, men wedged themselves into Heisenberg's, waved stacks of cash at the register and shouted, “I don't care what you put in the box, but make sure it's got that damn gold sticker.” Heisenberg's made a blistering fortune that year and reversed their downward trend.Thirteen months later I got a phone call from a jeweler in Connecticut. “You the man they call the Wizard of Ads?”“Who is this?” I asked.“I ran one of them 'wizard' radio ads that's supposed to work. Had the worst Christmas I ever had. Didn't work at all. Terrible. What've you got to say for yourself?”A few probing questions revealed that my client in Cabbage Valley had given this fellow a copy of my “simple gold seal” ad as though it were some kind of miracle cure.“I have to disagree with you,” I told the man. “That ad didn't fail. It worked extremely well for whoever is the scary expensive jeweler in your town. He had a tremendous Christmas. And he has you to thank for it. The people in your town just knew that your store wasn't the one described in the ad.”Like every great store-specific ad, the Heisenberg's gold seal campaign would never have worked if Heisenberg's hadn't already had the reputation of being extremely intimidating and expensive. That same ad could just as easily have been delivered by newspaper, direct mail or television and it would have worked just as well. It was the message – not the media – that delivered our miracle.Franchise ads are for team players who want to help build a strong collective brand.Product-specific ads are for special promotions.Store-specific ads are for local branding.Category-specific “institutional” ads are a waste of money.What kind of ads are you running?Roy H. Williams

People tell me they want to learn to think outside the box.No problemo. The secret is to stay out of the box to begin with.You crawl into the box when you think about your problem and wrap its known obstacles around you. So quit. Focus instead on an interesting saying, quote, or phrase unrelated to your problem. Crawl inside that bit of wisdom and look at your problem from this cozy new perspective. Don't be surprised if your chosen phrase works like Ali Baba's “Open Sesame,” and throws open the door to innovation, wealth, and recognition.The secret to conjuring powerful strategy – also known as coming up with The Big Idea – is to free your beagle. Abandon the linear, sequential logic of your brain's left hemisphere and engage the pattern recognition of the right.Last week I wrote to you about commitment, persistence. I had a reason.“Just as a dog guards a bone safely between its paws when not actively chewing it, creative people nurture an idea even when not actively thinking about it… Creativity does not result from mysterious visions that come in dreams, or from fortuitous circumstances. Creativity and persistence are synonymous. Constantly thinking about the problem, consciously and unconsciously, maximizes the possibility that a chance occurrence is likely to be useful in solving it.” – Dr. Richard Cytowic, neurologistPick a problem that's had you handcuffed. Now let's create a “chance occurrence” like the one mentioned by Cytowic. We're going to let your beagle sniff a trail from it to your new solution:1. Go to the home page of Wizard Academy and see, in the center of that page, the random quote that was generated for you from my personal collection of nigh a thousand.2. Ponder how the core idea of that quote relates to the problem you've been trying to solve. Find a link. Use the quote as a new point of origin. Let it pull you outside the box.3. Write down the solution triggered by the quote, no matter how ridiculous.4. Click the quote generator to launch a new quote and do it all over again. “Everything in the universe is connected, of course. It's a matter of using imagination to discover the links, and language to expand and enliven them.” – Tom RobbinsIf you were able to successfully unleash the beagle in your brain, you should have 3 new “outside the box” solutions in under 4 minutes. Continue to generate random quotes and apply them to your problem until one of them makes you laugh. Then walk away from your computer and go do something with your hands. Carry out the trash. Hang those mini-blinds you bought but never installed. Vacuum the car.Don't be surprised when your beagle reappears with a juicy rabbit of an idea. One that will really work.Happy Holidays.Roy H. Williams

Determination is emotional, a moment of intense focus with clenched jaw and the visualization of a mission accomplished.The sneer is gone from Casey's lip, his teeth are clenched in hate,He pounds with cruel violence his bat upon the plate;And now the pitcher holds the ball, and now he lets it go,And now the air is shattered by the force of Casey's blow.Oh, somewhere in this favored land the sun is shining bright,The band is playing somewhere, and somewhere hearts are light;And somewhere men are laughing, and somewhere children shout,But there is no joy in Mudville – mighty Casey has struck out.I've known men like Casey, haven't you? All hat, no cattle? Big bravado, little substance? An alligator mouth with a baboon butt?I'm sorry, but “merely determined” people seem shallow to me. Like Casey at the Bat, they get themselves all worked up, then just as quickly get unworked and wander off to do something else. Determination is transient.But commitment is irrevocable, a decision that never looks back.Ask someone you admire how they accomplished what they did, and they'll likely tell you a story of despair and the strong temptation to chuck it all, throw in the towel and quit. But they didn't. They hung on a little longer. And then one more day. And another…Big things happen for the truly committed on the far side of the breaking point, long after the merely determined have quit and gone home. Does this sound unreasonable to you? Consider the words of George Bernard Shaw: “The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends upon the unreasonable man.”George Bernard Shaw understood commitment.So did Margaret Mead. “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed citizens can change the world; indeed, that is the only thing that ever has.”Commitment steps up to pay the price when mere Determination runs for cover.I speak of marriage, faith, and business.In chapter 19 of the first book of Kings, Elijah, in a dark mood, runs to a cave in the wilderness and pours out his complaints to God, who instructs him to go and find Elisha, son of Shaphat, plowing with twelve yoke of oxen. Elijah found him and draped his cloak around Elisha's shoulders. Recognizing that he'd been chosen to finish the job begun by Elijah, Elisha immediately slaughtered his oxen and cooked their meat over the fires of his plowing equipment. Elisha gave the meat to his co-workers and family, then set out to follow Elijah and become his attendant.Elisha, a farmer, killed his oxen and burned his plow, leaving himself nothing to fall back on.That, my friend, is commitment.Is there anything to which you are truly and deeply committed? Is there anything for which you would kill your ox and burn your plow?On the day you can answer yes, you will have learned what it means to be genuinely happy.Roy H. Williams

Businesses don't fail due to reaching the wrong people.Businesses fail when they say the wrong things.And they say the wrong things when they believe what the public tells them.Conduct a survey. Ask the public to describe in detail the kind of place they'd like to shop. Then build that place, exactly as described, and see if they ever show up.Experience tells us they won't.We'll use furniture stores as an example. People say they want a store where they can look at all the different styles of furniture, see all the different patterns and colors of fabric and grains of wood and colors of wood stain, and then have their own 'dream furniture' made according to their choices. Today you'll find that furniture store on every corner. “And we'll even show you on a computer monitor exactly what your new sofa will look like! Want to see it in another fabric? Click this button. Another color of wood? Click this button. And we'll deliver it to your home, direct from the factory! You'll be buying factory direct!” But that's not how the big boys do it.His real name is Jim McIngvale. They call him Mattress Mac. Twenty-five years ago he dove headlong into the furniture business with just five thousand dollars. It's all he had. This year that furniture store will do nearly 200 million dollars in a single location, placing it among the most successful stores in the world.Jim occasionally buys a day of my time to pick my brain and bounce ideas off me. I should be paying him.During our last visit, I asked my friend if I could share the secret of his success with you. Graciously, he allowed it: As simple as this may sound, Jim's 200 million dollar secret is immediate delivery. When people buy new furniture, they want to see it in their home immediately. “Buy it today and we'll deliver it tonight,” is Jim's angle. He doesn't do special orders. “If you see it, we've got it.” Remember all those people who said they wanted to pick from a large selection of fabrics and wood grains? Tell them you'll deliver their new sofa in 8 to 12 weeks. Then Jim will show them something entirely different but offer to deliver it immediately. Guess who usually wins?What people say they would do is rarely what they will actually do. This is what makes it foolish to put too much faith in surveys. We don't know ourselves as well as we think.Ask any real estate agent. The homes people buy are never the ones they described to the agent when they got in the car. Not even close.Now let's talk about you. Chances are, you've been reaching the right people all along. You've just been saying the wrong things. Some ads are like waving raw meat in front of hungry dogs. Most ads are lectures, explaining to these same dogs all the joys of organic popcorn.Do you have a tasty message to deliver to the world? Or are you expecting your ad writers to apply a thick layer of creativity to hide the fact that you have nothing to say?Truthfully, what percentage of your ads say anything worth hearing?Sholem Asch was right when he said, “Writing comes more easily if you have something to say.” But Morris Hite said it brazenly, “If you have a good selling idea, your secretary can write your ad for you.”We're here if you need us.Roy H. Williams

Finances. Relationships. Health… the tall monsters we face in life's dark ocean when we awaken underwater, alone in the night, not knowing what to do.Ever been there?People respond to deep crisis in different ways. There are:1. Handwringers who talk about the problem to anyone who will listen. “You just won't believe what I'm going through.”2. Dark worriers who internalize the problem, then grow despondent and depressed. “Life sucks and then you die.”3. Positive thinkers who prop themselves up with platitudes: “When the going gets tough, the tough get going.” “God helps those who help themselves.” “It's not the size of dog in the fight that counts, it's the size of fight in the dog,” etc.4. Analytical planners who gather the data, calculate the odds, do whatever makes the most sense, then resign themselves to the eventual outcome. “I've done all that I can do.”5. People who abandon steps 1 through 4 and run to God like little girls. “Daddy! Daddy! Save me!”Does it surprise you that I've always been part of the run-to-God crowd?I'm not trying to be religious here. I'm trying to be helpful.Many of you will find today's memo completely irrelevant. I realize that. But with 31,000 readers, I've got to believe that at least a few hundred feel they are suffocating in darkness. (If you're in the sunshine-and-song, problem-free majority, you're free to quit reading right now if you like:)It seems to me that we're reluctant to run to God for different reasons:1. Doubt. “God doesn't exist and I'll not demean myself by caving in to that Myth after a lifetime of self-sufficiency.”2. Pride. “I ought to be able to handle this on my own.”3. Religiosity. “God is sovereign. If I suffer, it is because He has willed it.”4. Shame. “I haven't earned the right to ask God for anything.”Doubt has never been a problem for me. Maybe someday I'll tell you why.Pride is one of my less endearing traits. Frankly, I'm as territorial an alpha-male as any redneck bastard that ever drank Budweiser. But I have no pride when I ponder God. I'm arrogant. But I'm not stupid.Religiosity. I agree with Arthur C. Clarke, who said, “You can't have it both ways. You can't have both free will and a benevolent higher power who protects you from yourself.” In other words, I believe a once-sovereign God gave up absolute control of our circumstances on the day he gave us free will and put us in charge of this world. “Religiosity” is also what Tom, a friend of Anne Lamott, was talking about when he said, “You can safely assume you've created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do.”Shame. Like you, I've never earned the right to run to God like a little girl crying “Daddy, Daddy, Save me.” Certainly not. Instead, I take the position, “Jesus, let's not make this about how good I am. Let's make this about how good you are.”Call me crazy. Call me delusional. Call me a hopeless romantic, but I believe in a God who likes me and is on my side. And I am no stranger to miracles.Do you need a miracle? Like it or not, I've given you what has always worked for me. It's the very best advice I've got: “God, let's not make this about how good I am. Let's make it about how good you are.”Thanksgiving has always been my favorite holiday.Are there things for which you are thankful?Roy H. Williams

I did a bad, bad thing.Last week's memo ended too abruptly. “Yes, selling to men can be very easy. But how does one sell to women? Ah. That is a different question. – Roy H. Williams” The phrase, “sell to women?” was hyperlinked to additional information. Judging from the record number who clicked that link, What Women Really Want remains one of the great, unsolved mysteries of man.The hyperlinked phrase, of course, took you to the course description for Michele Miller's class on marketing to women. Those who clicked her free, streaming video found the answer. But for rest of you, my cliffhanging question remains unanswered.Allow me to rectify.Women want connectedness.John Donne wrote in 1624, “No man is an island.” But I disagree. Men are very often islands – voluntarily solitary. But I would agree that no woman is an island. Women are the connected ones, the glue, the binding agents in every family, whether a family by genetics or a family by choice. Women are the bringers of Together.“Men use language to establish status. Their measurements are up and down. 'What do you think of me now that I've said this? Am I up or down? Up or down?' But women use language to establish bonds of connection, near and far. 'How close are we now that I've said this?'” – Dr. Nick Grant, adjunct faculty, Wizard Academy“What a woman wants is someone who will listen to her.” – Donna Pinciotti, on That 70's Show, explaining why a beautiful girl canceled her date with Kelso to go out with Fez instead.In the world of women, what is romance but a thousand points of connectedness? Listen, men, and learn.My mother taught me all this when I was thirteen. She probably didn't think I was listening at the time, but it was one of those moments when that strange camera in my brain went “click.” “What a woman wants,” she told me, “is to know in her heart that someone considers her the most important thing in the world.”Study aberrant human behavior and you'll find that mass murderers are always men. Crazy women don't kill strangers. They have no connectedness with strangers. Crazy women kill their children.The cognoscenti will recall my comments on brain lateralization: “In Myers-Briggs terminology, the left-brain preferences are E,S,T, and J. The right-brain preferences are I, N, F, and P.” The left-brain is considered to be the masculine hemisphere; deductive reasoning, up or down. The right-brain is the feminine, intuitive hemisphere; pattern recognition, points of connectedness.Aha.Roy H. Williams

“The whole nature of man presupposes woman, both physically and spiritually. His system is tuned into woman from the start.” – Carl Jung, Two Essays in Analytical Psychology“What can a man say about woman, his own opposite? Woman always stands just where the man’s shadow falls, so that he is only too liable to confuse the two. Then, when he tries to repair this misunderstanding, he overvalues her and believes her the most desirable thing in the world.” – Carl Jung, Women In Europe“I think the idealization of women is indigenous to men. There are various ways of idealizing women, especially sexually, based in almost every case on their inaccessibility. When a woman functions as an unobtainable love object, she takes on a mythical quality. You can see this principle functioning as a sales device in advertising and in places like Playboy magazine. Almost every movie you see has this quality, because you can’t embrace the image on the screen. Thousands of novels use this principle, because you can’t embrace a printed image on a page.” – James Dickey, Self Interviews, p. 153In New York Harbor stands a lady. And a stone woman holds the scales in front of every courthouse in the land. And we conjure these twins by name with every dying breath of our Pledge of Allegiance, “…with Liberty and Justice for all.”Airplanes, ships, cars and guitars are given feminine names. If a thing is beautiful and important and precious to us, we always see it as a woman.When a man buys a diamond, he’s paying for the reaction of the woman he loves. He’s paying for that look on her face. He doesn’t care about the properties of the diamond itself; color, cut, clarity and carat weight. He cares only about the woman. In your ads, don’t make him imagine the sparkle of the diamond. Make him see the sparkle of the woman.Yes, selling to men can be very easy.But how does one sell to women?Ah. That is a different question.Roy H. Williams

The price of making a powerful statement is cheap compared to the cost of ads that don't work. So make a statement that counts. This is the best advice I can give you.I'm not talking about making a grand and sweeping claim, such as, “Lowest prices anywhere. We won't be undersold.” No one believes hype anymore. I'm talking about a statement that is bona fide, no loopholes, easy to experience. And it only takes one such statement to put a business over the top. This is why you should designate a percentage of your ad budget to purchase word-of-mouth advertising.Word-of-mouth is credible because a person puts their reputation on the line every time they make a recommendation. And that person has nothing to gain but the appreciation of those who are listening. What are you doing to make sure your potential ambassadors feel secure? What are you doing to trigger word-of-mouth?1. Word-of-mouth is triggered when a customer experiences something far beyond what was expected. Slightly exceeding their expectations just won't do it.2. Don't depend on your staff to trigger word-of-mouth by delivering “exceptional customer service.” Good service is expected. It's bad service we talk about. Great service can increase customer retention and generate lots of positive feedback to the business owner, but rarely is it the basis for word-of-mouth advertising.3. Physical, nonverbal statements are the most dependable in triggering word-of-mouth. These statements can be architectural, kinetic, or generous, but they must go far beyond the boundaries of what is normal.4. BUDGET to DELIVER the experience that will trigger word-of-mouth. Sometimes your word-of-mouth budget will be incremental, so that its cost is tied to your customer count. Other times it will require a capital investment, so that repayment will have to be withheld from your advertising budget over a period of years. The greatest danger isn't in overspending, but in under spending. Under spending for a word-of-mouth trigger is like buying a ticket halfway to Europe.5. Don't promise it in your ads. Although it's tempting to promise the thing you're counting on to trigger word-of-mouth, these promises will only eliminate the possibility of your customer becoming your ambassador. Why would a customer repeat what you say about yourself in your ads? You must allow your customer to deliver the good news. Don't rob your ambassador of their moment in the sun.Your word-of-mouth trigger can be architectural, kinetic, or generous.1. Architectural: This can be product design, store design, fantasy décor, etc. The piano store that looks like a huge piano, with black and white keys forming the long awning over the long front porch. The erupting volcano outside the Mirage in Las Vegas. A glass-bottom floor that allows customers to see what's happening far below them. Do you remember when McDonalds began building playgrounds attached to all their restaurants? It worked like magic for 20 years.2. Kinetic: Activity. Motion. “Performance” by every definition of the word. The tossing of fresh fish from one employee to another at Pike Place Market in Seattle, (the inspiration for FISH!, that bestselling book and training film.) The magical, twirling knives of the tableside chefs at Benihana. Kissing the codfish when you get “screeched in” at any pub in Newfoundland. (A screech-in is a loud and funny ceremony where non-Newfoundlanders down a shot of cheap rum, repeat some phrases in the local dialect, and kiss a codfish. Everyone who visits that wonderful island returns home with a story of being “screeched in.”) While it may at first seem like a staff-driven, kinetic word-of-mouth trigger is a violation of number 2 above, “Don't depend on your staff,” it's really not. A staff-driven kinetic word-of-mouth trigger is constantly observable by management. It isn't a “customer service” experience delivered privately, one on one. Extraordinary product performance is another kind of kinetic trigger. If a laundry detergent dramatically outperformed all others, its performance would likely become a kinetic word-of-mouth trigger. But remember, slightly exceeding customer expectations is usually not enough.3. Generous: Extremely large portions in a diner. Oversized seats on an airplane. Are you willing to become known as the restaurant that allows its guests to select – at no charge – their choice of desserts from an expensive dessert menu? You can easily cover the hard cost of it in the prices of your entrees and drinks. Flour, butter and sugar are cheap advertising. Are you the jewelry store that's willing to become known for replacing watch batteries at no charge, even when the customer hasn't purchased anything and didn't buy the watch from your store? Word will spread. And batteries cost less than advertising. Why sell them for a few lousy dollars when they're worth so much more as a word-of-mouth trigger?Architectural, kinetic, generous: these are the flour, butter, and sugar of effective word-of-mouth. What can you make from these ingredients? Will you put their rich taste into the mouths of your potential word-of-mouth ambassadors? Or will you make ambiguous claims in your ads and hope that people are willing to believe them?Roy H. Williams