Wizard of Ads Monday Morning Memo

A successful cluster manager was one of 36 people in a class I taught 2 months ago. When we went into Q & A, he asked for suggestions about what to do with a poorly performing radio station in his cluster.He expected me to suggest a format change, or a clever promotional campaign using billboards and TV. Or he may have thought I was going to give him some half-baked idea about how he could use social media to build an affinity group around the station’s format, because these are the kinds of suggestions people make when a radio station wants to attract a bigger audience.Why is it that everyone assumes the way to increase a radio station’s revenues is to increase the size of its audience?I said, “I’ll answer your question if you want me to, but I need to warn you that my answer is extremely simple, it always works, and it’s going to embarrass the hell out of you that you haven’t already done it.” Then I smiled and asked, “Are you sure you want me to answer in front of all these people?”Since he was the only broadcaster in a room full of business owners and the whole group had bonded pretty tightly during the previous 2 days and nights together, he just smiled back at me and said, “Bring it.”I wrote something on a piece of paper, then folded it and laid it on the table in front of him. “Game on.”The other 35 people in the room clapped and cheered because they knew we were about to have fun.He said, “It’s my number 6 station. My top 3 stations are doing fantastic and numbers 4 and 5 do pretty well, but number 6 just kind of limps along.”“Does it make a profit?”“Yes, but nothing special.”“How many units per hour do you feel would be the right spot load on that station?”He said he’d like to keep it to just 14 units per hour.I said, “6AM to midnight, 7 days a week, 14 units per hour yields 1,764 ads per week.”Next question: “Based on your current audience size, name a spot rate you would be happy to get on that station if every advertiser bought equal daypart distribution across 4 dayparts, morning drive, mid-day, afternoon drive, and evenings until midnight.”He named a modest price per ad.I said, “I’m a local business owner, I’m going to buy 40 ads per week, every week for 52 weeks, and I insist that my 40 ads get equal daypart distribution 6a to midnight. I want morning drive, mid-day, afternoon drive, and evenings until midnight, just like we talked about; none of that R.O.S.* crap. Got it?”He said, “Got it.”I said, “During the next 12 months, I’m going to become a household word to a whole lot of people. Frequency and consistency! That’s the right way to use radio! Forty ads per week for 52 weeks is going to make my business the one your audience thinks of immediately – and feels the best about – whenever they or any of their friends need what I sell.”Next question: “On your #6 station, what’s going to be my 1-week net reach with a weekly 3-frequency, 52 weeks in a row?”The man knew his station, so he was able to name the approximate net reach my schedule would deliver each week. It was a net reach that could make a real difference for any advertiser. I said, “Never let an advertiser compromise frequency and consistency. If they don’t want to do radio right, they don’t get to be on this station.”He said, “But that’s not how advertisers buy radio in my town.”I said, “We don’t need to convince the whole world. We just need to find 44 small business owners who can understand that this is the right way to use radio. We’re going to explain it to them and answer their questions until we have found 44 business owners smart enough to buy 40 ads per week with equal daypart distribution 6AM to midnight.”Then I reminded him how little money those 40 ads per week were going to cost those 44 advertisers each month. I asked, “How many businesses can afford that monthly investment?”That’s when it hit him. He appeared to be deep in thought when he muttered, “There’s a bunch of advertisers in our town that can’t afford our big stations, but they could easily afford that.”I said, “Your problem is that you’ve been allowing your sales team to sell all 6 stations. Take number 6 away from them. Turn it over to just one A.E. (Account Executive – salesperson) and make it the only radio station they get to sell and 40 ads per week/52-weeks is the only schedule they get to sell. Do you have someone in mind you can turn that station over to?”He started getting excited. He said, “I’ve got a couple of people in mind.” Then after a brief pause, he said, “At that price per month, I can have 44 clients sold within 90 days!”I nodded my head. “Every advertiser can afford it and it’s going to work incredibly well for them and most of these advertisers are going to be new business for you. Your people haven’t been calling on those businesses because they don’t have enough budget to buy your big stations. That’s why you’ve got to turn station 6 over to just one A.E. and let them focus on selling and servicing those 44 clients. You’ll want to choose an A.E. who can write great ad copy, because that’s how you keep annual contracts on the radio year after year.” [Results come from ad copy, and clients buy Results.]It was beginning to soak in. He said, “That A.E. is going to have 10 times as many prospects as the big stations! Every business in town can afford this schedule!”I handed him a calculator and told him to calculate the revenue he was going to bring in from just 14 units per hour at the modest spot rate he had named. His eyes popped open and he shouted, “That’s 5 times what we’re billing right now!”“Open the piece of paper in front of you,” I said.He opened the paper and started laughing. Then he held it up for the rest of the room. In fat black magic marker it said, “5X.”Everyone clapped, but we weren’t finished yet. I said, “The only way you can screw this up is to let the rest of your sales team continue to sell station #6. You’ve got to take it away from them. Now calculate the commission of the lucky A.E. who gets to sell your smallest station, the one that every business can afford.”He calculated a moment, then said, “It’s almost 350 thousand dollars a year.”I said, “No one can do a really great job with 44 clients, but a good A.E. can make 22 clients feel like royalty. Can people survive in your town on just 175 thousand a year?”He assured me they could, then asked, “Have you ever done this?”I told him the truth. “It’s how I became successful in radio. By the time I was 26, I was making more money than most doctors and lawyers, and I was selling the number 23 radio station in a city of 23 stations.”He laughed and confessed, “You were right. I’m embarrassed I haven’t already done this.”Roy H. Williams* R.O.S. means “Run of Schedule,” 6AM to 6AM. The problem with ROS ads isn’t that the overnight spots have no value – because they definitely have value – the problem is that broad rotators like R.O.S. will cause the Nielsen computer to give you wildly inflated frequency numbers, and you can’t afford to not know the truth about how much repetition you’re buying. Radio lives and dies with ad repetition. “Reach” is how many people will hear the ad. “Frequency” is how often the average person will hear the same ad. You need to ACCURATELY know how often the average listener will hear your ad in one week – your target is 3X – then buy that same “typical week” 52 weeks in a row, year after year. You need the same listener to hear the same ad 3x within every 7 nights sleep. This is how empires are built using radio. Most people schedule their radio ads Wide and Shallow, but that is incredibly dangerous if you have a limited budget. If you buy too little repetition (frequency,) you may reach 100% of the people, but convince them only 10% of the way. A much better plan would be to use your limited budget to buy Narrow and Deep: reach 10% of the people and convince them 100% of the way. The cost is the same. – Indy BeagleAAs an active U.S. Army Colonel, Christopher Kolenda — a West Point graduate — led 800 paratroopers in Afghanistan. Six of his soldiers were killed under his command. The loss of his troops and the lessons he learned about effective leadership during his military career are very much on Colonel Kolenda’s mind this Memorial Day. Whether on the battlefields of Afghanistan or in the bunkers of American business, Colonel Kolenda says that victory always stands on a foundation of three legs: Leadership, Culture, and Strategy. If your business is weak in any of these, Colonel Kolenda believes you are forfeiting your competitive advantage. Listen in as Kolenda takes roving reporter Rotbart to school at MondayMorningRadio.com

What you do today is important, because you are exchanging a day of your life for it.What will you do today?“If your life’s work can be accomplished in your lifetime, you’re not thinking big enough.”– Wes JacksonI knew a man who used to say, “I don’t ever get my hopes up. That way, I’m never disappointed.”If I had been the executor of his estate, his gravestone would say: “He had potential.”I often write about Identity, Purpose, and Adventure:Identity: Who am I?Purpose: Why am I here?Adventure: What must I overcome?Without trouble, there is no adventure.That being said, children and grandchildren are the most wonderful adventure.“To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries: avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket-safe, dark, motionless, airless it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, non-redeemable. The only place outside of heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers of love is hell.” – C. S. LewisMy friend J.P. Engelbrecht sent me a text last week,“Finally read A Gentleman in Moscow. What a lovely book! Thank you for the recommendation.”For those who have not read it, A Gentleman in Moscow is about an older man who becomes, through no choice of his own, the protector and caregiver of a little girl. It is truly a remarkable book.Now that I think about it, Little Orphan Annie is essentially that same story.Many years ago, Pennie and I loved watching Anne of Green Gables (1985) when it was available on TV. Right now we’re watching the updated version, Anne With an E. Basically, it’s about an elderly brother and sister who become, through no choice of their own, the protectors and caregivers of…Oh, I guess it’s the same story as the other two.“I don’t know what your destiny will be, but one thing I know: the only ones among you who will be really happy are those who will have sought and found how to serve.”– Albert SchweitzerTo protect and equip and encourage others is what each of us was born to do.Who are you protecting?If you are a not a protector, you need one.What are you equipped to do?If you are not doing it, now would be a great time to start.Who do you encourage?Let that be the personwho decides what to carveon your tombstone.Roy H. WilliamsA Young Brian Scudamore had a series of private chats with a man who took $1,000 and turned it into a personal net worth of $3.5 billion. Simon Sinek told Brian his deepest insights the night he slept on Brian’s sofa. In Brian’s new book, you’ll meet an NBA superstar, a past president of Starbucks, a British advertising tycoon, and a winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics as they wander on and off the pages like movie stars on the red carpet at the Academy Awards. Wait! I just saw Bob Dylan, Martin Luther King, Dr. Seuss, and Charles Schwab. Roving reporter Rotbart talks to mega-famous Brian Scudamore, a longtime client of the wizard, on today’s happy and hilarious episode of MondayMorningRadio.com!

I write advertising because I’m good at math.According to my calculations at age 18, the odds of making a living as an ad writer were 117,682% higher than the likelihood that I could make a living as a poet.But really, poems and ads are the same thing.Good poems promote a new perspective in a brief, tight economy of words.Good ads promote a new perspective in a brief, tight economy of words.The objective of both is to get you to see something differently.Poets and ad writers want to alter your perception. To do this, they use words that cause you to hallucinate; to see something that isn’t really there. They want you to look into their magic mirror and see yourself less worried, happier, and beaming with light.Every generation worries about what the next generation seems to have forgotten.Perhaps I am an outlier even among my own generation, but I have long been concerned about how few people today understand the purpose of the arts.I am frustrated that so few understand the differences between the heart and mind.I am broken-hearted that so few know the basic stories of the Bible.“Earth’s crammed with heaven,And every common bush afire with God;But only he who sees, takes off his shoes,The rest sit round it, and pluck blackberries.”– Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Aurora Leigh, 1857Using the megaphone of poetry to whisper to us from 165 years ago, Dizzy Lizzy Browning is referring to the reaction of Moses in the desert of Midian when he saw a bush on fire in the distance that was never consumed.Moses turned aside to see it more closely. Looking into the glow, Moses heard a voice and took off his shoes because he knew he was in a special place.Elizabeth Barrett Browning is telling us that wonders are all around us, if only we would open our eyes. She is saying, “Stop. Notice. Go to the place. Realize that it is special.”How is that not an ad?When you know the basic stories of the Bible and the ancient Greeks, you see them echoed in the biggest movies, the best-selling novels, and the top-rated television shows.When you know those stories, you can use them as templates in communications of your own.These are stories that have proven to be magnetic, memorable, and persuasive. Note that phrase: “proven to be.”Repurpose the proven.In a movie directed by Oliver Stone in the second half of the 1980’s, Charlie Sheen plays a young man who follows a bad father figure, then turns to follow a good father figure. Can you name the movie?If you said Platoon, you are right. If you said Wall Street, you are right. Both movies told the same story, and both were a huge success. The primary difference was that Platoon took us into the green jungles of Viet Nam circa 1967, and Wall Street took us into the concrete jungles of Manhattan circa 1985.Here’s my point: Wall Street premiered less than 12 months after Platoon, but no one who saw it complained, “Hey, we were told this story last year!”Learn when and how to repurpose the proven.Solomon – another interesting Biblical character – said,“The beginning of wisdom is this: Get wisdom. And though it cost all you have, get understanding.”Unconscious competence is called talent. A talented person instinctively knows what to do.Knowing what to do is wisdom.Conscious competence is called skill. A skilled person has studied talented people long enough to figure out what they are unconsciously doing and why it works.Talented people know what to do.Skilled people know why to do it.Skilled people have understanding.Aim for understanding.Roy H. Williams

In his 3,000-year-old book, Ecclesiastes, King Solomon tells us of the stages and phases of his life, his fads and fancies, his regrets and realizations. Then he gives us his final conclusions and advice. Next to the Good News of John, Ecclesiastes is probably my favorite book in the Bible.Oscar Wilde wrote a similar summary of his stages and phases, fads and fancies, regrets and realizations in a private letter to his best and last and only friend. Later published as De Profundis, “From the Depths,” this 55,000-word letter shines with the unfiltered transparency of a man who has nothing but time, nothing to gain, and nothing to lose.Indy Beagle shared a couple of passages from De Profundis in last week’s rabbit hole. After receiving several happy emails from rabbit holers, Indy suggested that I give Oscar’s story a wider frame and take you on a deeper dive.Grab your scuba gear.As a young man, Oscar fell in love with a woman who dumped him to marry his more conservative childhood friend, Bram Stoker. So Oscar married another young woman who bore him two fine sons. He soon became flamboyantly famous as a comedic playwright, a social wit, a raconteur, and a writer of children’s stories.*Oscar Wilde was like Coca-Cola. He was everywhere.And then he went to prison for being gay.“The gods had given me almost everything. But I let myself be lured into long spells of senseless and sensual ease. I amused myself with being a flaneur, a dandy, a man of fashion. I surrounded myself with the smaller natures and the meaner minds. I became the spendthrift of my own genius, and to waste an eternal youth gave me a curious joy. Tired of being on the heights, I deliberately went to the depths in the search for new sensation.”“I had lost my name, my position, my happiness, my freedom, my wealth. I was a prisoner and a pauper. But I still had my children left. Suddenly they were taken away from me by the law. It was a blow so appalling that I did not know what to do, so I flung myself on my knees, and bowed my head, and wept, and said, ‘The body of a child is as the body of the Lord: I am not worthy of either.’ That moment seemed to save me. I saw then that the only thing for me was to accept everything. Since then—curious as it will no doubt sound—I have been happier.”“I want to get to the point when I shall be able to say quite simply, and without affectation that the two great turning-points in my life were when my father sent me to Oxford, and when society sent me to prison… I was so typical a child of my age, that in my perversity, and for that perversity’s sake, I turned the good things of my life to evil, and the evil things of my life to good.”“A man’s very highest moment is, I have no doubt at all, when he kneels in the dust, and beats his breast, and tells all the sins of his life. I am completely penniless, and absolutely homeless. Yet there are worse things in the world than that.”“Nobody is worthy to be loved. The fact that God loves man shows us that in the divine order of ideal things it is written that eternal love is to be given to what is eternally unworthy. Or if that phrase seems to be a bitter one to bear, let us say that everybody is worthy of love, except him who thinks he is.”“Love is a sacrament that should be taken kneeling. Where there is sorrow there is holy ground. Someday people will realize what that means.”“Indeed, that is the charm about Christ, when all is said: he is just like a work of art. He does not really teach one anything, but by being brought into his presence one becomes something. And everybody is predestined to his presence. Once at least in his life each man walks with Christ to Emmaus… [Christ] had an intense and flamelike imagination… He understood the leprosy of the leper, the darkness of the blind, the fierce misery of those who live for pleasure, the strange poverty of the rich… When you really want love, you will find it waiting for you.”Oscar Wilde was released from prison on May 19, 1897, precisely 125 years ago next Thursday.Upon his release, Oscar fled to France. He was no longer welcome in England.There is a strangely prophetic passage in De Profundis when Oscar says,“Many men on their release carry their prison about with them into the air, and hide it as a secret disgrace in their hearts, and at length, like poor poisoned things, creep into some hole and die. It is wretched that they should have to do so, and it is wrong, terribly wrong, of society that it should force them to do so.”Shortly after his arrival in France, Oscar Wilde died of acute meningitis caused by an ear infection. In his semiconscious final moments, he was received into the Roman Catholic Church, which he had long admired.He was 46 years old.Roy H. Williams*”The Happy Prince”, “The Nightingale and the Rose”, “The Selfish Giant”, “The Devoted Friend”, and “The Remarkable Rocket” are Oscar Wilde’s most famous stories for children.NOTE FROM INDY – One month after Oscar was sent to prison, his childhood friend Bram Stoker began writing Dracula, a novel about shadowy characters with transgressive sexual impulses.

If relationships matter to you at all, don’t put your negative emotions in writing.Spoken words land softly on their feet like a cat that has fallen from a tree. But written words often land with a thud, and the crack of a fractured relationship.My son Jacob taught me an African proverb last week,“The axe forgets, but the tree remembers.”That proverb reminded me to warn you,“Never put a negative emotion in writing.”There are few things as reckless and destructive as a text, an email, or a letter in which you “clear the air” by venting your anger, your fear, your frustration, your disappointment, or your sadness.If you cannot speak face-to-face with the person that you feel needs to hear what you have to say, then at least find a way to speak voice-to-voice.Never put a negative emotion in writing.I speak recklessly, but I write carefully. Every time I have put a negative emotion in writing, I have regretted it.Introverts prefer to communicate in writing. As a member of that 49 percent of our population, I say,“I understand your preference for writing instead of talking. You are good at writing. This is why it is especially important for you to realize that your negative, written words hit harder, hurt more deeply, and cause more widespread destruction than the words of your extraverted friends. So please, never put a negative emotion in writing. But the opposite is also true: your written words of recognition, praise, and encouragement will raise the spirits, strengthen the resolve, and give new energy to every person on whom you shine that happy light.”During the dark times, the tree will remember that light.And smile.Are you ready for a surprise? The same applies to advertising.If your relationship with prospective customers matters to you, don’t put negative emotions into your ads.You ask, “But don’t I at least need to describe the pain of the problem before I tell them about the solution?”No, because if you do, your name and your brand will unconsciously become associated with pain and problems. People will remember you when they need what you sell, but they will feel better about someone else. And this “someone else” they feel better about will probably make the sale.If you want to be that “someone else,” learn to write ads that make people feel good about themselves, their future, and you.I’ve been saying it for 35 years:“Win the heart and the mind will follow. The mind will always find logic to justify what the heart has already decided.”Did you know that I think about you several times each week? As I sit in the light of my computer screen at 2:30 each morning, I ponder the price you pay to read what I write to you. Money can be replaced but time cannot, so each minute you spend with me is spent forever. It can never be replaced. This is why I try to give you things that will last; things you can take with you and use again and again.I cannot see your face but I feel your presence and I want the best for you, just as you want the best for all the people that your life touches.Shine on, bright friend, shine on. All the trees around you will remember.Roy H. Williams

An affinity group is composed of peoplewho share an identity marker.Backpackers are an affinity group.Corvette drivers are an affinity group.If you like to sew, you are part of an affinity group.Every sports team has “fans,” an affinity group.If you like wine, you are in that affinity group.People who like science are part of an affinity group.If you would rather drive than fly, you are part of an affinity group.In a class he taught at Wizard Academy, Ryan Deiss said,“Identify a tribe. Develop the tribe. Market to the tribe.”Ryan was talking about affinity groups.Affinity groups have an affinity for – an attraction to – a particular thing.Marketing to affinity groups is a smart thing to do.*Do you know the jargon of the affinity group you are trying to sell?People who spend time to save money are in an affinity group.People who spend money to save time are in a different affinity group.Your ad copy attracts one of these groups more strongly than it does the other. Do you know which group you are unconsciously targeting?Maggie Tufu is a fictional character, but she spoke profoundly when she said,“Tell me what a person admires and I’ll tell you everything about them that matters.”Mark Zuckerberg is rich because he controls one of the major gateways that allow advertisers to reach affinity groups.Every time you click on something – anything at all – you reveal intimate things about yourself to Mark and dozens of other data brokers. Soon you will have told them everything about yourself that matters.Allow me to quote a video that you will see near the end of today’s rabbit hole:“What all these companies have in common is they collect your personal information and then resell or share it with others… The entire economy of the internet right now is basically built on this practice. All the free stuff that you take for granted online is only free because you are the product. They make money by selling your data… As one expert puts it, ‘They’re the middlemen of surveillance capitalism.'”Several of the apps you have on your phone are tracking you for the purposes of letting you know which of their locations is “Nearest You” at any given moment. And they sell that data to data brokers, some of which are happy to tell anyone – who wants to kill you, kidnap you, or sell you an extended warranty – exactly where you are right now.The going price for that information is $45.Seems like there ought to be a law that makes this impossible, right? Well, there is an outside chance that such a law might soon be enacted.According to that video you’ll see near the end of today’s rabbit hole,“The one time that Congress has acted quickly to safeguard people’s privacy was in the 1980s when Robert Bork was nominated to the Supreme Court and a reporter walked into a local video store and asked the manager whether he could have a peek at Bork’s video rental history. And he got it. As soon as Congress realized there was nothing stopping anyone from retrieving their video rental records too, they freaked out. And lo and behold, the Video Privacy Protection Act was passed with quite deliberate speed.”At the end of today’s rabbit hole, you can see how one man is currently trying to motivate Congress by threatening to reveal all the detailed, personal information he gathered about each of them after spending just a few dollars with data brokers.This could get interesting.Roy H. Williams*Earlier, when I said, “Marketing to affinity groups is a smart thing to do,” please notice that I did not say that marketing to affinity groups is the “only” smart thing to do. I continue to believe in the effectiveness of untargeted mass media – TV and radio – because it works miraculously if you know how to use it. It reaches your target, but it also reaches the influencers of your target. And compared to online marketing, Mass Media is astoundingly affordable.

Thirty-five years ago, he patrolled a stretch of beach as long as two football fields on a Caribbean Island whose name I cannot remember.He pushed a wheelbarrow full of ice as he pranced from one end of his empire to the other, the music of his voice rising and falling over the sound of the surf.“I’m sorry I’m late, but I’m here. You want it. I got it.”His music would often stop. Then resume. Stop.Resume. Stop.Finally, we saw him, a tiny, native islander in his late 50’s, as slender and leathery as a bullwhip, his naked feet falling as lightly as snowflakes on the soft Caribbean sand.“I’m sorry I’m late, but I’m here. You want it. I got it… I’m sorry I’m late, but…”His song would stop abruptly when he saw a hand raised. Sprinting to that spot with his wheelbarrow, he would ask the vacationers to name the drinks they desired.I watched him for a while. He was a genius.Occasionally he would reach into the ice and produce the requested beverage, but usually, he would pull his empty hands out of the icy water and fly like a bullet to his shack at the back of the beach. He would leave so quickly that you had no time to tell him you would happily accept a substitute.He would return like Santa’s reindeer, his feet barely touching the sand, with the requested drink in hand, triumphant and proud not to have let you down.Once, as I saw him fly over the sand with cold drinks in hand, I thought I could hear the sound of sleigh bells,“More rapid than eagles his coursers they came,And he whistled, and shouted, and called them by name:‘Now, Dasher! now, Dancer! now Prancer and Vixen!On, Comet! on, Cupid! on, Donner and Blitzen!‘”That’s when it hit me: “This sandy song and dance is the daily floor show he gives us in this magnificent tavern without a ceiling. He is making a fortune in tips, and earning every bit of it.”I observed him long enough to decode his methods: if he suspected vacationers of feeling entitled and flinty, he would immediately pull their drinks from the ice, accept their money, and resume his happy song.“I’m sorry I’m late, but I’m here. You want it. I got it.”I was honored when he couldn’t find our drinks. Pennie and I smiled at each other as he sprinted across the sand and returned with them 90 seconds later.One minute after that, we smiled at each other again when we saw him pull those same drinks from the ice to serve an unhappy couple 20 feet away.Like I said, the man was a genius.When an unpleasant person is demanding my attention and I feel like showing them the bird that I keep in my hand, I think of that happy, slender islander, and tell myself that he is still there, his hands in the ice, his bare feet falling like snowflakes on the soft Caribbean sand.Roy H. Williams

It is easier to increase sales than it is to cut expenses.In the words of Adrian Van Zelfden, “You cannot shrink your way to profit.”Cost-cutting CEO’s are hailed as geniuses by Wall Street and lauded as saviors by private equity firms because cost-cutting always works in the short-term.But that’s not how you build a business.When Roger Smith rose from his position of accounting clerk to become CEO of General Motors in 1981, Wall Street saw him as a brilliant businessman who was “optimizing operations” and “maximizing profits.” But anyone who loved cars could see that he was destroying one of America’s great companies.When I complained to one of my brothers-in-law that the GM brands were rapidly losing their distinct identities to become a bland blend of nothingness, he said, “You don’t understand business. It costs a lot to engineer and tool a new model of car for each GM brand,” (Chevrolet, Pontiac, Oldsmobile, Buick and Cadillac,) “so Roger Smith is building all the cars on a single platform. But each brand will get its own grill and headlights and interior and taillights.”I said, “Perhaps I don’t understand business, but I understand marketing and reputation-building from the hair of my head to the soles of my feet and I’m telling you that Roger Smith is destroying General Motors.”Every time I point out the dangers of an unsustainable plan to cash in on the 90-day attention span of the American investor, I am told, “You don’t understand business.”Always those same four words.Prior to the arrival of “optimizing, maximizing” Roger Smith in 1981, GM held 46% of the U.S. car market. By the time he left 9 years later, market share had slipped to 35.4% and was rapidly falling. When asked about the plummeting market share, he defended the bottom line: “You don’t pay dividends on market share.”By depriving his brands of the oxygen of creativity and innovation, Roger Smith choked the life out of General Motors.Oldsmobile died. Pontiac died. Buick is not far behind. GM’s market share in 2021 was only 15.2% of the U.S. car market.This did not have to happen.“Critics say Smith’s greatest flaw was overemphasizing that bottom-line mentality rather than working on improving product quality. ‘He was a bean counter,’ says Owen Bieber, who was president of the United Auto Workers during much of Smith’s tenure. ‘Suddenly, GM started making a lot of cars that looked alike. I used to tell him that you can’t have a Cadillac that looks like a Chevrolet and expect to sell them both.’”– Los Angeles Times, Dec 1, 2007By 1989 GM was losing $2000 on every GM10 it built. Asked by Fortune magazine why the program had failed, Roger Smith answered: “I don’t know. It’s a mysterious thing.”In June, 2009, when GM dropped to its knees and begged the bankruptcy courts for mercy, Motor Trend magazine had this to say,“Less than a year after celebrating its centenary, the company we knew as General Motors is dead. Once the richest and most powerful automaker in the world; the symbol of American industrial might; the engine room of the American economy, General Motors is now officially bankrupt.”*You cannot shrink your way to profit.Roy H. Williams* June 1, 2009 – A series of bad decisions based on grievously flawed assumptions led to GM having just $82 billion in assets and $173 billion in liabilities on June 1, 2009. This is a scenario that routinely repeats itself, but no one seems to be paying attention. – RHW

The choice between a good thing and a bad thing is never a hard choice. The only hard choice is between two good things.Science is a good thing. And so are the Arts. Why choose?Rube Goldberg became wildly famous 100 years ago because his elegantly absurd inventions combined Science with Art.Elegant absurdity surprises and delights us because it reveals lofty creativity and deep commitment aimed at something that is not – to the logical mind – worth the effort.Confronted with the elegantly absurd, pure logic snorts a derisive laugh, but the heart laughs with peals of pure joy.YouTube and TikTok are filled with elegant absurdity. OK GO rode the rocket of the elegantly absurd to heights unknown, then Walk Off the Earth rode it like a surfboard to the edge of the world and beyond. The absurdly elegant inventions of Mark Rober and the elegantly absurd shenanigans of Rex and Daniel have given them massive influence in their fields of endeavor.Marching bands, baton twirling, and tap dancing… perhaps all kinds of dancing… are examples of the elegantly absurd because they require creativity and commitment to achieve something that, again – to the logical mind – isn’t worth the effort.Indy Beagle has examples of all these for you in the rabbit hole.Satire is another elegant absurdity.“Satire has done more to change society than a mountain of political policies. Everything from All in the Family to Saturday Night Live to The Daily Show… (not to mention court jesters, Twain, Menippus, Will Rogers). It’s a battering ram disguised as a rubber chicken.”– Johnny MolsonBut is ‘elegant absurdity’ as absurd as it first appears?“Life is a drama full of tragedy and comedy. You should learn to enjoy the comic episodes a little more.”– Jeannette Walls“The more evolved an animal is, the more time it spends playing.”– P.J. O’Rourke“Humanity has advanced, when it has advanced, not because it has been sober, responsible, and cautious, but because it has been playful, rebellious, and immature.”– Tom Robbins, Still Life With Woodpecker, p. 19So there it is. When you are literate in the basic concepts of the Sciences and the Arts, you are qualified to be elegantly absurd. You are that flash of energy, that illumination we see when two wires come into close proximity after having been connected to opposite poles of the same high-voltage battery.Shine on, bright friend, shine on.Roy H. Williams

The great game of BUSINESS does not come with an instruction manual.The assumption of most players is that Customer Acquisition – lead generation – sales opportunities – is how you win the game.But the understanding of a Highly Skilled Player goes 2 levels deeper:Customer Acquisition (lead gen)Conversion (closing the sale)Remove the Friction (from the buying experience)Highly Skilled Players understand that exponential growth is unleashed by improving the conversion rate. Big differences in top-line sales and bottom-line profits flow from small improvements in Conversion.Highly Skilled Players are usually successful, but the Master Players – the paradigm shifters – the system disruptors – the Kings and Queens of their Categories – turn this Highly Skilled Order of Operations upside down.This is the methodology of every Master Player:Remove the FrictionCustomer AcquisitionConversionWithout exception, every one of the 26 Mammoth Successes in which I have played a part was triggered by Removing the Friction.When you remove the friction, you differentiate yourself in a profound and meaningful way. Customer Acquisition accelerates and Conversion Rate climbs.The friction in your customer’s Buying Experience is hard to see, but you can feel it in the reluctance of your customer.A customer survey will only add to your confusion because customers cannot consciously tell you what they subconsciously feel. You will read the results of your survey, do what your customers told you they wanted, but it won’t help you in the slightest.Let’s review:You need to remove the friction that creates Customer Reluctance.This is felt as a lack of sales opportunities, but you cannot identify the cause.Because it is subconscious, not even your customers can tell you the cause.Wait. It gets worse.When you were a kid, did you ever call “dibs”? If there was only one piece of cake and you wanted the right to eat that cake, you would call “dibs” on it. You had a preference and you wanted to impose that preference on others before they could impose their preference on you.Now that you are an adult, there is a new kind of DIBs – Data Information Bias – and it is far more costly than the loss of a piece of cake.I have a client who was successful long before they met me, but their Data Information Bias was impeding their ability to jump to a higher level. I recognized their DIBs when they told me to write ads that would drive sales opportunities to the telephone. Their data clearly indicated their conversion rate was much higher on the telephone than on their website.I said, “You have an extraverted sales assumption, a preference for listening and talking rather than reading and writing. And you assume that everyone else is like you. But it isn’t true. Your data isn’t telling you to drive your customers to the telephones, it is telling you to fix your website.”They believed me. They fixed it. And their sales volume doubled. Then we doubled the double by removing the friction in their mass media. That company is now approaching 10x the sales volume and profitability that was previously considered “successful.”You have already told yourself that you would have interpreted their data correctly. Am I right?Perhaps you would have. But that company’s data isn’t what is holding you back. Your own data and your own Data Information Bias is holding you back, but you can’t see it because it is hiding in your blind spot.If you knew it was there, they wouldn’t call it a blind spot.This last little bit that I am going to tell you – if I can figure out how to communicate it clearly – will resolve the final two mysteries that are lingering in your mind.If I am correct, you are wondering:“Why can’t the customer articulate their subconscious reluctance? I believe I could do it.”“If I am honest and sincere and open-minded, what could possibly keep me from seeing what is supposedly hiding in my blind spot?”Fear and Pride are the answers to both of those questions.Every form of Customer Reluctance is built upon a subconscious fear. We are too proud to admit – even to ourselves – that we are fearful, so we tell ourselves a convenient lie so that we don’t have to admit we are afraid. We believe this lie, so this is the lie that we report to you in your Customer Survey.To see what is hiding in your blind spot, you will have to alter one of your fundamental beliefs about how the world works. Your fundamental beliefs underlie your operating system, your worldview. You and I are exactly alike. Our pride causes us to have a deep, natural aversion to learning that we may have been wrong all along.Here is one example that might help you understand the depth and pervasiveness of the typical blind spot: If a person believes that “money makes the world go ’round” and that we can always find the truth if we “follow the money,” they will also believe that everyone evaluates each other based on their incomes. They see proof of that belief everywhere they look, because we see what we are looking for.Their belief in money as the primary motivator causes them to create a generous pay plan for their employees. They then find success by:(A.) lowering their prices to attract more customers, or(B.) offering a discount or rebate to attract more customers, or(C.) raising their prices to create a “prestige brand” like Rolex or Tiffany or Ferrari.Their solutions to problems will always begin with the assumption that money is the primary motivator. And this deep, instinctive belief about “how the world works” will be correct enough to bring them a meaningful degree of success. But hiding in their blind spot will be a huge number of employees they can’t hire, and a large number of customers they can’t attract. These are people for whom money is not the primary motivator.A belief in money as the primary motivator is just ONE of the many fundamental beliefs that can form a worldview, and with it, the blind spots that can keep you from getting to the next level.Every blind spot is the result of a deep, instinctive belief you trust unconditionally. You trust it because it brought you the success you currently enjoy.But if the growth of your business has flattened out,it is probably an instinctive belief that is holding you back.It got you to where you are.But it won’t take you to the next level.Is your hunger for growth strong enoughto cause you to listen to thingsyou would rather not hear?Aroo,Roy H. WilliamsNOTE: The business owner who believed “money is the primary motivator” unconsciously targeted the low-profit Transactional customer in his A & B options, gaining the high-profit Relational customer only in option C. We’ll talk more about this in the rabbit hole.– Indy Beagle