Wizard of Ads Monday Morning Memo

“In a bombing run over Kassel, Germany, Elmer Bendiner’s B-17 bomber was barraged by 20-millimeter shells which resulted in direct hits on their gas tanks. But none of the shells exploded. The next day, the maintenance chief found 11 shells inside the gas tanks, any one of which should have taken the plane down. When they opened the shells, all were empty, except one. In it was a hand-written note scrawled in the Czech language. Upon translation, they found it said, ‘This is all we can do for you now . . . Using Jewish slave labor is never a good idea.’”– Fall of the Fortresses, by Elmer BendinerA captive Czechoslovakian Jew sent a message in a bottle through an ocean of air, not knowing if it would ever be read.The first message in a bottle was tossed into the sea in 310 BC by Aristotle’s protegé, Theophrastus, hoping to determine if the Mediterranean Sea was formed by the inflowing Atlantic Ocean.In 1177 A.D. an exiled Japanese poet launched wooden planks on which he had engraved poems describing his predicament. His story is known today as The Tale of the Heike.In the 1500s, Queen Elizabeth created an official position of “Uncorker of Ocean Bottles” in the belief that some bottles might contain secrets from British spies.Edgar Allan Poe’s “MS. Found in a Bottle” (1833) and Charles Dickens’ “A Message from the Sea” (1860) taught us to “cast our bread upon the waters” and trust the wisdom of the waves.In the summer of 1977, NASA tossed a message in a bottle into the vast ocean of space. That bottle was Voyager 1, and it included a golden record with greetings from earth in 55 languages along with a collection of 117 sights and sounds including whale calls and the music of Chuck Berry. That record was also engraved with pictorials showing how to operate it, along with the position of our sun relative to nearby pulsars. We did this because we wanted extraterrestrials to know which solar system our bottle was thrown from.After zipping through space for more than 43 years Voyager is only 23 billion kilometers away. It will take 17,720 years for it to travel one light year, less than one quarter of the way to Alpha Centauri.Seven billion of us are crammed on a tiny speck of dust circling an 11,000-degree fireball as it shoots through a limitless vacuum at 52 times the speed of a rifle bullet.Have you ever considered that our planet, itself, is a spherical bottle and we are the message it contains?If Shakespeare was right, “All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players,” and if the writer of Hebrews was right, “We are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses,” then you and I are backstage right now while others occupy the spotlight. I have been waiting for this moment so that I could speak to you alone, without the others hearing.I believe you underestimateyour talent, your experience, your value.You make a bigger difference than you realize,and you matter much more than you know.You will be amazed when you understandall that you have accomplished!We both know it is easy to love people we do not likebut God really does like you!I see him cheering for youfrom the sidelines.And I like you, too.I tossed this note into the worldwide ocean of ones and zeros and whispered for it to find you.And here you are!Merry Christmas.– Your Secret Admirer

Do you have a deep-seated belief, but you’re not sure where it came from?I have passionately rejected the idea of goalsetting for more than 50 years, but I’ve never understood why I felt so deeply about it until just a moment ago.Welcome to Sunday morning, November 29, 2020.The word “goal” has a certain wishfulness attached to it.“Starlight, star bright, first star I see tonight, I wish I may, I wish I might…”I do not believe in goals.I believe in responsibilities.I believe in decisions.Which of the following is the more effective self-talk?A: My sales goal this month is $200,000.B: It is my responsibility to sell $200,000 this month. And I have decided to do it.Goals do not change behavior.Decisions change behavior.(Yes, a goal can occasionally lead to a decision.When that happens, focus on the decision, not the goal.)Desire is rooted in the ego.Identity is rooted in the heart.Goals are produced by desire, what you want.Decisions are produced by identity, who you are.If your goal changes who you are, then you have made a decision to be a different person.If what you want is more important than who you are, then you are an addict.Alcoholics Anonymous is in the business of long-term behavior change. I find it interesting that they do not teach their members to focus on the goal of not drinking. They teach them to make a decision not to drink… one day at a time.They emphasize the decision, not the goal.Goals have attraction.Decisions have consequences.A goal aims your mind at a desire.But your mind is easily distracted by desire after desire after desire.When you make a decision, you pull the trigger and ride that bullet.Decisions have consequences.The Bible has an interesting passage in the second chapter of the book of James:“Suppose a brother or a sister is without clothes and daily food. If you say to them, ‘Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,’ but do nothing about their physical needs, what good is it?”Few things reveal a person’s identity like the tip they leave on a table.If you leave a specific percentage, you are disciplined.If your tip is determined by the quality of the service, you are a judge.If you tip lavishly even when the service is bad, you are an encouragement.Regardless of which of these people you have been in the past, you are only a decision away from being a different person in the future.Roy H. Williams

The partial meltdown of the Three Mile Island nuclear reactor in 1979 happened because of a burned-out lightbulb.When a particular safety system was malfunctioning, that bulb would light up and the technician would alertly take care of the problem.No one anticipated a burned-out bulb.Their mistake, according to my partner Cedric, is that they were monitoring for failure instead of monitoring for the absence of goodness. “That bulb should have been bright when things were good and go out when something was wrong.”A system can malfunction in countless ways but there is only one way it can function perfectly.You need to expect goodness and monitor for the absence of it.Did I tell you that Cedric is a programmer, a data scientist, and a genius?One of Cedric’s most important inventions is a system that monitors the vast array of data-crunching computers used by an important hedge fund. “The old system monitored for failure,” says Cedric, “but certain functions happen only intermittently, so a problem could exist for hours before it was discovered.”Cedric’s new programming checks every element of the system once per minute, round the clock, to confirm that everything is working correctly. But his system isn’t looking for a problem. It is looking for perfection and notifies Cedric when it fails to find it.Cedric says, “One mother tells her son to call when he gets to his friend’s house (and then takes action if she doesn’t get a call by the expected time). Compare this to the mother who says, ‘Call if you get into trouble,’ never realizing that it could be hours after a car accident before she would know that something was wrong.”The first parent is monitoring for the absence of goodness.The second parent is monitoring for failure.The lucky hedge fund with the perfectly monitored system owes a debt of gratitude to Captain Jack Sparrow.Jack Sparrow peed on the comforter in Cedric’s bedroom every time his automated kitty litter box was full, so Cedric wrote software that checked for failure once per minute.Cedric lost 3 comforters before he realized the automated kitty litter box could malfunction in more ways than he could predict, so he wrote new software to “monitor for the absence of goodness” rather than monitor for failure.Problem solved.An automated kitty litter box is a complex system.The data-crunching computers of a hedge fund are a complex system.Employees are a complex system.Are you monitoring for mistakes to criticize, or for performance to praise?If you want smooth transactions, happy customers, and big profits to be ordinary, you must cheerfully expect these things and then come to the rescue only when they fail to happen.Employers who have strong corporate cultures and happy, long-term employees are the ones who have learned to celebrate the ordinary and praise their people when things are going well.If that is not how you have operated in the past, you are only a decision away from being that employer in the future. Just ask my friend, Paul Sherman. Indy tells me you can find him in the rabbit hole.Roy H. Williams

Works of art are made by people who have tasted one or more of the nine juices of life and they want you to taste the juice, too. This was the belief of a teacher who lived in India 2,000 years ago. His thoughts were chronicled in the Natya Shastra of the Hindus. According to that teacher*, these are the Nine Juices of Life:Love heals pain and frees the ego. Your appreciation of beauty (gratitude) connects you to the source of love.Joy is expressed in laughter, contentment, and happiness. But if you pursue these things directly, they will evade you.Laughter, contentment and happiness are experienced only as a consequence of love.Wonder is the result of becoming fascinated with life. Playfulness and curiosity allow us to journey into mysteries that end in magical awe.Courage is the energy that comes when you call upon the Warrior within you. Courage manifests itself as bravery, confidence, and pride.Sadness allows you to experience compassion, that precious emotion that allows us to relate more deeply to one another. Grief is another expression of sadness, an inescapable part of healing.Anger is fire, heat and light. If anger is not acknowledged and respected, it becomes irritation, hatred, and violence. Feel your anger, but do not let it guide you. Actions taken in anger can destroy a lifetime of good.Fear is most commonly expressed as worry, doubt, and insecurity. When we hide beneath it, we shut down completely.Disgust is revulsion and rejection of something considered offensive, distasteful, or unpleasant. Disgust turned inward is self-pity and self-loathing. This cannot be healed except through love.Peace is not external, but within. It is that deep, relaxing calm that occurs when you become so full that you are empty. Five hundred and seven years ago, Giovanni Giocondo wrote about this kind of peace in a Christmas letter to a friend. “No peace lies in the future that is not hidden in this present little instant. Take peace!”If our Hindu teacher was right, every actor, musician, storyteller, painter, poet, dancer, sculptor, photographer, novelist and playwright is trying to express one or more of those nine feelings: Love, Joy, Wonder, Courage, Sadness, Anger, Fear, Disgust, and Peace.I’m not a Hindu, but I think the idea of the nine rasas is one worth contemplating.It has always been my conviction that interesting perspectives and ancient wisdom can be found in religions that are not your own. But even so, I am always unsettled when a person says, “All religions teach basically the same thing.”If a moral code is all you seek, then yes, most religions teach a similar moral code.But the laughter and joy of a reckless faith is an altogether different thing.Roy H. Williams* The theory of rasa is attributed to Bharata, a sage-priest who may have lived sometime between the 1st century BCE and the 3rd century CE. It was fully developed in about the year 1000 by the rhetorician and philosopher Abhinavagupta.

This is what good marketers see when they close their eyes:Win the heart and the mind will follow. The mind of the customer will always create logic to justify what their heart has already decided.We buy what we buy to remind ourselves – and announce to the world around us – who we are.A tribe is a group of self-selected insiders.Identify a tribe, (an affinity group.)Develop that tribe.Market to the tribe you have developed.Gathering your tribe is easy. (A.) In your first encounter, make sure they win big. Give them far more than they gave you. (B.) Speak to your tribe about what they ALREADY care about.All of the above can be summarized in two words: Identity Reinforcement.Entertainment is the currency with which you can purchase the time and attention of a too-busy public.Television and radio, YouTube videos, blog posts and social media deliver results because they deliver entertainment.Information is medicine. Entertainment is a spoonful of sugar.Reaching the customer is mechanical, a question of media selection.Convincing the customer is artistic, a question of message creation.Reaching the right people is easy. Saying the right thing is hard.Online, when you target the right customer at the zero moment of truth you are fishing with a hook for today’s customer.At the zero moment of truth online, the best hooks are information, availability, and free shipping.Customers seeking information have not yet chosen a preferred provider.Customers seeking availability want the product immediately.Customers seeking free shipping want to save money.When using mass media – TV and radio – at the zero moment of truth, your message must be urgent.Urgency is achieved when the desire is widespread, but the availability is limited.Customers in transactional mode are worried about spending money. They are willing to spend time to save money.Customers in relational mode are worried about spending time. They are willing to spend money to save time. This is why they will choose someone they feel they can trust. In the absence of a previously chosen preferred provider, they will choose to trust Google reviews and Amazon reviews.Television and radio are called mass media for a reason: they reach the unfiltered masses. When you use mass media, you are fishing with a net for future customers and their influencers.The goal of advertising in mass media is to become the preferred provider, the one the customer thinks of first and feels the best about.Mass media – TV and radio – can deliver big results quickly, but only for products that have broad appeal and a short purchase cycle.Food and entertainment have broad appeal and a short purchase cycle.Engagement rings and air conditioners have broad appeal and a long purchase cycle.The longer you use mass media, the better it works. The effects of mass media are cumulative. But it only works for products and services that have broad appeal.When using mass media long-term for products with a long purchase cycle, your message must be memorable.Mass media fails miserably for products with narrow appeal.When your product has narrow appeal, online media is your answer.Make your store and your website interesting. The seller who gets more of the customer’s time is the one most likely to get their money.Online, when you want to target the customer at the zero moment of truth, you have to bid on the right keywords or buy the right list.Unbranded keywords are the ones that everyone in your category is bidding on.Unbranded keywords are expensive.Branded keywords are those signature phrases – brandable chunks – for which your company is known.Branded keywords deliver 7x to 10x higher return-on-investment than unbranded keywords.Branded keywords are most easily created through mass media – TV and radio – but they can also become known through blog posts, YouTube videos, and other social media.Don’t set out to make money. Set out to be the kind of company that people want to do business with.If people like you, they will create their own logic for buying from you.Do you remember our opening statement? “Win the heart and the mind will follow. The mind of the customer will always create logic to justify what their heart has already decided.”These are some of the things you will study in-depth when you become a member of the Ad Masters Guild at the American Small Business Institute.Coming soon. Just email Zac@WizardAcademy.org to get your name on the early notification list.Roy H. Williams

Every beginning starts with an ending.This is one of the principles of Pendulum theory.And the middle is always in the middle.When our fight with King George ended in 1783, thirteen powerless colonies became “The United States.” This was the beginning of the first America; 3 million citizens clinging to the eastern edge of a vast, uncharted wilderness. Truly, “a land of opportunity.”Eighty years later – 1863 – we were in the middle of a war between ourselves. (1861-1865)And July 2nd of that year – the middle day in the 3-day Battle of Gettysburg – was also the middle day of the middle year in our 5-year Civil War.Fourteen years after the Civil War ended, Charles M. Russell and Frederic Remington headed west to capture the ending of the Wild West. Their paintings and sculptures of those ending days now sell for millions of dollars.Nineteen years after Charlie and Fred headed West, Teddy Roosevelt led his “rough riders” up a hill during the Spanish-American War. His arrival on that hilltop signaled the end of the Wild West, the end of the Spanish Empire, and the end of the first America.1As I said earlier, every beginning starts with an ending.The second America began when Teddy became President in 1901. This second America was a land of progress and achievement, a World Power, a country of cars and department stores and Coca-Cola, electric lights, running water, and houses everywhere.Do you remember when Whitney Houston sang, “I Wanna Dance with Somebody”? America’s memory of the Civil War was more recent than that when they elected Teddy Roosevelt.One of Teddy’s first official actions was to invite Booker T. Washington, a black educator, to dinner at the White House. White-hot rage was ignited across the South. According to historian Deborah Davis, “There was hell to pay… This story did not go away. An assassin was hired to go to Tuskegee to kill Booker T. Washington. He was pursued wherever he went… There were vulgar cartoons of Mrs. Roosevelt that had never been done before.”The Revolutionary War ended and the first America began: Opportunity America.One hundred and twelve years later – 1901 – the second America began: Achievement America.One hundred and twelve years later – 2013 – the third America began: Virtual America,a “sharing economy” featuringvirtual ownership, (Airbnb, Uber, TaskRabbit)virtual currency, (Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin)virtual reality. (Facebook, Twitter, TikTok)2013 was also the halfway point in the upswing of society’s pendulum toward the zenith of our current “We” cycle. The halfway point is where we begin to take a good thing too far. In 2013 we shifted from “fighting together for the common good” to simply “fighting together.”Western Civilization2 has done this every 80 years for the past 3 millennia.I wrote at length about it in Pendulum several years ago:1783 marked the ending of our Revolutionary War.1783 was the zenith of a “We.”80 years later…1863 marked the middle of our Civil War.1863 was the zenith of a “We.”80 years later…1943 marked the middle of WWII.1943 was the zenith of a “We.”80 years later…2023 will mark the zenith of our current “We.”I wonder what we’ll be in the middle of then?Roy H. Williams1 the America of George W. and Thomas J. and Benjamin F. and Samuel Adams, the patron saint of beer. 2 Western Civilization began 3,000 years ago in Israel and Persia, then expanded to ancient Greece, then to Rome, then to Britain who took it to North America and Australia.

Dr. Seuss had1. the courage to make up new words,2. the confidence that his readers would understand what these new words meant, and3. he was a master of meter, the rhythm that is created when you arrange your words so that the stressed and unstressed syllables fall into patterns.There are a couple dozen types of meter, but Dr. Seuss used only one of them, anapestic meter, sometimes called galloping meter because it tumbles off the tongue.People often conflate meter with rhyming. But meter does NOT have to rhyme to work its magic.“What magic?”The magic of being musical.“Meter makes words musical?”Yes.“Even when read silently?”Yes, even when read silently.“So, what’s the benefit of it?”When words become musical, they enter into the non-judgmental, pattern-recognition portion of your mind.“Non-judgmental?”The right hemisphere of the brain doesn’t know fact from fiction; that’s the left brain’s job. Pierre de Beaumarchais understood this way back in 1775.“How do you know?”It was in 1775 that Beaumarchais wrote in The Barber of Seville, “Anything too stupid to be spoken is sung.”“I think you’re making all this up.”Dr. Roger Sperry documented it in 1981 and they awarded him the Nobel Prize for it.“Oh… so maybe I should just shut up and listen?”Might be a good idea.“Please continue.”Bounty, the quicker-picker-upper.BMW. The ultimate driving machine.My client would not, could not, did not commit these crimes. If it doesn’t fit, you must acquit.“Are those examples of anapestic meter?”No, anapestic meter is two light stresses followed by a heavy third stress, like this:Oh, the sea is so full of a number of fish,if a fellow is patient, he might get his wish…and that’s why I think that I’m not such a foolwhen I sit here and fish in McElligot’s Pool.And who could forget,The children were nestled all snug in their beds,While visions of sugar-plums danced in their heads;And mamma in her ‘kerchief, and I in my cap,Had just settled down for a long winter’s nap,When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter,I sprang from the bed to see what was the matter.Away to the window I flew like a flash,Tore open the shutters and threw up the sash.The moon on the breast of the new-fallen snowGave the lustre of mid-day to objects below,When what to my wondering eyes should appear,But a miniature sleigh, and eight tiny reindeer…“Okay, but can you give me an example of anapestic meter that doesn’t rhyme?”And his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold;And the sheen of their spears was like stars on the sea,Like the leaves of the forest when Summer is green,Like the leaves of the forest when Autumn has blown,For the Angel of Death spread his wings on the blast,And the eyes of the sleepers waxed deadly and chill,And there lay the steed with his nostril all wide,And the foam of his gasping lay white on the turf,And so there lay the rider distorted and grey,And the widows of Ashur are loud in their wail,So I walk by the edge of a lake in my dream.“But you said Dr. Seuss made up new words and trusted that people would know what they mean.”You want to hear some made-up words?“Yeah, but not from Dr. Seuss.”Why not?“Because I won’t be speaking or writing to little kids. My people are old enough to drive cars, drink beer, and vote.”Fair enough. Here are some grown-up, made-up words.The reason you haven’t seen me out is because I’ve been Hiberdating.I type slowly because I’m Unkeyboardinated.Give me a bus ticket to anywhere. I’m going Columbusing.I can’t remember where I went last night. I think I’ve got Destinesia.The doctor and I had a Nonversation. It was very Unlightening.I don’t hang out with Todd anymore. He was always staring at his phone in a high state of Textpectation, so I Dudevorced him.You can’t say Idiot anymore. You’ve got to say Errorist.I was so exhausted I fell into bed and had a Bedgasm.“Okay, I get it.”But can you do it?“What do you mean?”Sixty-nine years ago, John Steinbeck wrote a note to his best friend, Pascal Covici:“I suffer as always from the fear of putting down the first line. It is amazing the terrors, the magics, the prayers, the straightening shyness that assails one. It is as though the words were not only indelible but that they spread out like dye in water and color everything around them. A strange and mystic business, writing. … And one thing we have lost – the courage to make new words or combinations. Somewhere that old bravado has slipped off into a gangrened scholarship. Oh! you can make words if you enclose them in quotation marks. This indicates that it is dialect and cute.”– John Steinbeck, Journal of a Novel: The East of Eden Letters“Okay, so you’re saying what?”I want you to honor Dr. Seuss and John Steinbeck by finding the courage to make new words and new combinations.“Why should I go to the trouble?”1. It will make you interesting.2. It will make you memorable.3. It will make you money.“Are you saying that if I don’t do this I’m an Errorist?”That’s exactly what I’m saying.“Where should I send my sentence with a made-up word in it?”indy@WizardOfAds.com.“Do you think he’ll publish it in the rabbit hole?”I have no idea. Indy does what he wants in the rabbit hole.“How long do I have?”Until Saturday, November 21st at midnight. You need to write two sentences; one with a made-up word that we instantly understand PLUS a second sentence featuring an unexpected combination of two or more words.“Can you give me some examples of unexpected combinations?”It was a bicycle morning. Anticipation rang the bell on my happiness meter until a telephone call ended it all and my words froze and shattered in the airless air.“Did you just make that up?”Yeah. Now it’s your turn.Roy H. Williams

Jacques Cousteau, the man who made the world care about the ocean,said, “A lot of people attack the sea. I make love to it.”But he was French.Not being French, I don’t see each day’s work as a choice between attacking or love-making. I see the future unfurl each morning as a fork in the road. Will I choose the battleground or the playground?Do you see business as a necessity of life, a battleground swarming with vendors, employees, customers and competitors that have to be kept at bay? Or do you see each day as a playground where the principal game is called, “How can we make others happy?”I have lived a strange life these past 40 years, spending all day, every day talking with business owners about their best and worst experiences in business.What I have noticed is that there are patterns, one of which is that the “business is a playground” people are happier and more successful.They didn’t become happy because they were successful. They became successful because they were happy and wanted to make other people happy, too.1. Are you making people happy?2. How are you doing it?3. Where do you find your inspiration?Inspiration is an interesting subject. Decades of searching for it have taught me, “Take your inspiration from wherever you find it, no matter how ridiculous.”My hero Robert Frost found inspiration in ridiculous places as well.The way a crowShook down on meThe dust of snowFrom a hemlock treeHas given my heartA change of moodAnd saved some partOf a day I had rued.Here are three ridiculous places where I have found inspiration:J. Peterman catalogueChuck Lorre Vanity CardsChipotle Story CupsJ. Peterman catalogueIt’s Friday night at a 200-year-old pub off O’Connell Street in Dublin. World headquarters for conversation. Dark mahogany walls. Lean-faced men. Ruddy-faced women. The bursts of laughter aren’t polite, but real, approaching the edge of uncontrol. The stories being told are new, freshly minted, just for you. There is no higher honor. The room roar is high (but still, not as bad as in New York restaurants where you can’t make out what it is you, yourself just said). These Irishmen, in collarless Irish shirts and tweed caps, have managed to keep their mouths shut all week, saving up the good stuff for now, for Friday night, this very place, this very moment… How could one single city possibly give birth to Yeats, Shaw, Joyce, Wilde, Beckett… and all those here tonight as well? Working-Class Irish Pub Shirt, well-suited for both the intoxication of talk and the difficult art of listening. Not bad for just hanging out, either. Or, when absolutely necessary, for looking interesting. Simple collar band. Seven-button placket. Stud at neck. No-nonsense, rounded shirttails. Two-button cuff. No pocket. You’ve got to carry everything you’ve got… in your head.Chuck Lorre Vanity Cards# 397 CENSORED BY ME (by myself) I’ve decided to save everybody a lot of unhappiness and not submit this week’s vanity card to the CBS censors (I know when I’ve crossed the line with these things and I don’t need a bunch of corporate lawyers getting their cotton blend panties in a bunch). Accordingly, I’ve banished the offending card to that dark place where all my offending cards go – the internet. View the censored 397.#634  Russia, if you’re reading this, hack into the Nielsen computers and make our ratings higher.Chipotle Story CupsIn 2014, Chipotle asked a number of America’s best writers to craft stories to print on the sides of their cups. This is the story written by bestselling author Barbara Kingsolver:“Two-Minute Cheer for the Home Team”The ancient human social construct that once was common in this land was called community. We lived among our villagers, depending on them for what we needed. If we had a problem, we did not discuss it over the phone with someone in Mumbai. We went to a neighbor. We acquired food from farmers. We listened to music in groups, in churches or on front porches. We danced. We participated. Even when there was no money in it. Community is our native state. You play hardest for a hometown crowd. You become your best self. You know joy. This is not a guess, there is evidence. The scholars who study social well-being can put it on charts and graphs. In the last 30 years our material wealth has increased in this country, but our self-described happiness has steadily declined. Elsewhere, the people who consider themselves very happy are not in the very poorest nations, as you might guess, nor in the very richest. The winners are Mexico, Ireland, Puerto Rico, the kinds of places we identify with extended family, noisy villages, a lot of dancing. The happiest people are the ones with the most community.But here’s my favorite part of the Chipotle story:“The Yale Collection of American Literature collects American Literature in all its formats and in all media, documenting the ways great American writers reach diverse and unusual audiences beyond standard book publishing,” says a statement from the world-famous library at Yale.You guessed it. Yale acquired the whole series of Chipotle cups for the Yale University Library.Evidently, I’m not the only one who finds inspiration in ridiculous things.Roy H. Williams

The economy, commerce, business, the stock market and free trade: all of these were built on our ability to sell things to each other.This is why the job of the ad writer is incredibly important.Television and radio, newspapers and magazines, direct mail and email, word-of-mouth and live chat, social media and outdoor, telephone calls and sales calls are just different channels of communication.Every point-of-contact with your customer is a channel of communication.Your website is where questions are answered and additional information is gathered. But this doesn’t happen until the customer first hears about you and is intrigued enough to seek you out.External messaging – advertising, social media, news stories, and word-of-mouth – is where the conversation begins.External messaging usually triggers a visit to your website.This is the first hand-off in the relay race.If your website is built for ecommerce, the sale might be closed there, and the conversation ended. But if you have a phone room, or face-to-face salespeople, their job is to continue the conversation begun by external messaging and accelerated by your website.When a customer leaves your website to contact a salesperson, this is the second hand-off in the relay race. The baton is now in the hand of the third runner, a live human being.Have you ever seen a three-legged race where the right leg of one team member is tied to the left leg of another team member, requiring them to run in a synchronized manner?The first runner is your ad writer. The second runner is your salesperson. The bond that ties them together is your website. When these are synchronized, coordinated, and singing the same song, you have channel alignment and a high close rate.When they are managed separately, each of them going their own way, you have salespeople complaining that they aren’t getting “good leads” and that your ads are “reaching the wrong people.”I’ve never seen a company fail due to reaching the wrong people. But I’ve seen countless companies struggle due to a lack of channel alignment.I’m done talking now.Roy H. Williams

Seinfeld was “a show about nothing,” but we couldn’t get enough of it because each of us knew a George, an Elaine, and a Kramer.Rebecca Solnit’s book, The Faraway Nearby, reminds me of Seinfeld. I love this book, but I can’t really explain what it’s about. Solnit can write about nothing and keep you mesmerized. Sort of like Tom Robbins, but entirely different.Sigh.I’m not sure what else to tell you.“In this gorgeously written and insightful book, Solnit weaves essay and memoir so that the nature of the story itself is sharply drawn from every imaginable angle. Personal history, geography, maps, ice, mirrors, and breath play back and forth, as the structural threads of narrative are wound, knotted, and unwound… In a world increasingly bereft of the genuine, Solnit’s writing shines with heart, wit, and soul.”– Lindsay Hill, Publishers Weekly“The product of a remarkable mind at work, one able to weave a magnificent number of threads into a single story, demonstrating how all our stories are interconnected.”– Bookforum“A brilliant, genre-refuting book.” – San Francisco ChronicleHere is an example of what those people – and me – are trying to describe:“I used to go to Ocean Beach, the long strip of sand facing the churning Pacific at the end of my own city, for reinforcement, and it always put things in perspective, a term that can be literal too. The city turned into sand and the sand into surf and the surf into ocean and just to know that the ocean went on for many thousands of miles was to know that there was an outer border to my own story, and even to human stories, and that something else picked up beyond. It was the familiar edge of the unknown, forever licking at the shore.”“I found books and places before I found friends and mentors, and they gave me a lot, if not quite what a human being would. As a child, I spun outward in trouble, for in that inside-out world, everywhere but home was safe. Happily, the oaks were there, the hills, the creeks, the groves, the birds, the old dairy and horse ranches, the rock outcroppings, the open space inviting me to leap out of the personal into the embrace of the nonhuman world.”“Once when I was in my late twenties, I drove to New Mexico with my friend Sophie, a fierce, talented, young black-haired green-eyed whirlwind who had not yet found her direction. We had no trouble convincing ourselves it was worthwhile to drive the two days each way to New Mexico because there was a darkroom there that she could use to print photographs for a project we had. In those days we were exploring what we wished to become, what the world might give us, and what we might give it, and so, though we did not know it, wandering was our real work anyway.”“I had discovered the desert west a few years before with the force of one falling in love and had learned something of how to enter it and move through it…”– Rebecca Solnit, The Faraway Nearby, p. 31-32We relate to Seinfeld because we, too, have had Jerry’s friends but called them by different names.We relate to Rebecca Solnit because we, too, have felt alone, discarded, and ignored.We relate to Rebecca because we have driven to New Mexico with a crazy friend.Who was your crazy friend?What crazy things did you do together?How did it happen that you fell out of touch?Roy H. Williams