Wizard of Ads Monday Morning Memo

Few people remember it because it was too long ago.April, 1962– America tries to overthrow Fidel Castro of Cuba in the “Bay of Pigs” invasion.July, 1962– Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev reaches a secret agreement with Fidel Castro to place Soviet nuclear missiles in Cuba to deter any future invasion attempt.October 14, 1962– An American U–2 spy plane takes photos of Soviet nuclear missiles being assembled in Cuba, just 90 miles off the coast of Florida.October 22, 1962– American President John F. Kennedy appears on national television announcing a military quarantine of Cuba, warning the American people of the potential global consequences. “It shall be the policy of this nation to regard any nuclear missile launched from Cuba against any nation in the Western Hemisphere as an attack by the Soviet Union on the United States, requiring a full retaliatory response upon the Soviet Union.”October 24, 1962– Nikita Khrushchev says the U.S. blockade is an “act of aggression” and Soviet ships bound for Cuba are ordered to proceed.U.S. forces are placed at DEFCON 2, meaning war involving the Strategic Air Command is imminent.October 26, 1962 – John F. Kennedy learns that work on the missile bases is proceeding without interruption and that an American U-2 spy plane has been shot down over Cuba, and its pilot, Major Rudolf Anderson, is dead.The world totters on the brink of nuclear war between superpowers.Americans everywhere stop in their tracks and look to the skies.And then two of them wrote a song:Said the night wind to the little lamb,“Do you see what I see,Way up in the sky, little lamb?Do you see what I see?A star, a star, dancing in the nightWith a tail as big as a kite.With a tail as big as a kite.”This was the image of a nuclear missile followed by its fiery tail in the night. But it was also the image of a star poised above Bethlehem, shining its light on a baby wrapped in swaddling clothes.Said the little lamb to the shepherd boy,“Do you hear what I hearRinging through the sky, shepherd boy?Do you hear what I hear?A song, a song, high above the treesWith a voice as big as the sea.With a voice as big as the sea.”Said the shepherd boy to the mighty king,“Do you know what I knowIn your palace warm, mighty king?Do you know what I know?A Child, a Child shivers in the cold,Let us bring Him silver and gold.Let us bring Him silver and gold.”Said the king to the people everywhere,“Listen to what I say,Pray for peace, people everywhere!Listen to what I say,The Child, the Child, sleeping in the night,He will bring us goodness and light.He will bring us goodness and light.”During the darkest hours of the Cuban Missile Crisis, a French veteran of WWII living in New York, Noël Regney, wrote the lyrics and his Brooklyn wife, Gloria, wrote the music.And for as long as they lived, neither of them could sing it all the way through without crying.Merry Christmas,Roy and Pennie Williams

Throughout my career as an ad writer, I’ve noticed that the easiest companies to skyrocket are those with a healthy and happy corporate culture.You know it’s a great company when everyone wants to get a job there and no one wants to leave.Let’s talk about culture.Definition One:In biology, a culture is a cultivation (usually bacteria, germs, or tissue cells) in an environment of nutrients.Culture: a cultivation in an environment of nutrients.Do you want to create a culture?Step One: EnvironmentStep Two: NutrientsDefinition Two:When we describe a person as “cultured,” we’re saying they are conversant in the arts.In the words of Phil Johnson, “You acquire an education by study, hard work and persistence. But you absorb culture by viewing great art, listening to great music and reading great books.”The arts are nutrients for the heart. To become “cultured” in the arts is to know how to make peoplefeel differently.Definition Three:When our friend Susan Ryan came home after 7 years of doing business in a third-world country, she said, “It’s hard to develop a strategy that will overcome hundreds of years of enculturation. Culture eats strategy for lunch.”A strategy is made of goals, objectives, and activities.A culture is made of values, practices, and behaviors.Princess Pennie says strategy is today’s “do list”and culture is all the yesterdays that made you who you are.Definition Four:The culture of a business is expressed as esprit de corp: the spirit of the group.Culture: a cultivation in an environment of nutrients.Business Culture: a cultivation of practices and behaviors in an environment of values.If you don’t have strong values, you won’t have a strong culture.If you don’t reward and celebrate employee practices and behaviors, you’re just mouthing platitudes and clichés. (Commonly known as mission statements and corporate policies.)Anyone can copy your strategy, but no one can copy your culture.Branding is nothing more than corporate culture made known.Good advertising promises your customer a specific experience.It is then up to your people to deliver that experience.Shout it from the housetops.Roy H. Williams

I’m reading Hemingway’s novel, Death in the Afternoon, and I like it.It is a detailed explanation of bullfighting.Not a story about a bullfighter.Bullfighting.I have no interest in bullfighting. None.The book has no character arc because it has no characters. It has narrative, but no narrative arc. No plot, no moments of crisis, no heroism, no romance.It is essentially an instruction manual.Why do I find myself drawn to this book?Yesterday morning I said to Pennie, “Hemingway is teaching me some things I can’t quite put into words, but as soon as I can figure out how to explain them, I’ll tell you what they are.”She was moving laundry from the washer to the dryer. “Read me a page that you liked.”“Page one hundred and twenty. Hemingway has been explaining how the bulls of Salamanca differ from the bulls of Andalucia when – out of nowhere – he inserts a literary device I’ve never seen in a book.”“What kind of literary device?”“He imagines a reader’s reaction to his book, then, speaking as that reader, he criticizes the author for not doing the thing that made him famous. Then, as the author, he accommodates this imaginary reader by inserting an imaginary conversation with an imaginary woman. It’s the same kind of multi-layered self-talk Robin Williams used to do.”“Read it to me.”But, you say, there is very little conversation in this book. Why isn’t there more dialogue? What we want in a book by this citizen is people talking; that is all he knows how to do and now he doesn’t do it. The fellow is no philosopher, no savant, an incompetent zoologist, he drinks too much and cannot punctuate readily and now he has stopped writing dialogue. Someone ought to put a stop to him. He is bull crazy.Citizen, perhaps you are right. Let us have a little dialogue.What do you ask, Madame? Is there anything you would like to know about the bulls?Yes, sir.What would you like to know? I’ll tell you absolutely anything.It is a difficult thing to ask, sir.Do not let that trouble you; talk to me frankly; as you would to your doctor, or to another woman. Do not be afraid to ask what you would really like to know.Sir, I would like to know about their love life.Madame, you have come to just the man.Pennie smiled and nodded her head. Then she handed me a gang of shirts on hangers and told me to put them in my closet.I hung the shirts on the doorknob of the laundry room and said, “It’s like that time I took Chris with me to Seattle.”“That time he began speaking to an imaginary television audience in that seafood restaurant?”“Yeah. He just put down his fork, stared at a point on the wall across the room and said, ‘Hello there, friends. It’s time, once again, for Workin’ It, with Chris Maddock.’ After a 5-minute opening monologue, he turned and began talking to a guest on his show; an invisible woman seated next to him. Never cracked a smile. Never broke character.”“How did the show end?”“He just picked up his fork and started eating again.”“What year was that?”“1999”“When did Hemingway write the bullfight book?”“1932”As she picked up a stack of folded towels, she said, “When we’re surprised by weird, unexpected twists and turns, it makes the journey more interesting.”I nodded my agreement and lifted the shirts off the doorknob.“Maybe you should do that in a Monday Morning Memo.”“Maybe I will.”Roy H. Williams

1967 – A little boy leaned on his elbows in front of a black-and-white TV in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma, unaware that Walt Disney was dead.How could he be dead? I was watching him on TV.Looking right into my eyes, Walt told me about his purchase of 43 square miles of Central Florida, an area twice the size of the island of Manhattan, and his plan to build there an Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow (EPCOT.)He was standing in a Hollywood film studio in front of a floor-to-ceiling map of his Florida project when he said,“Welcome to a little bit of Florida here in California. This is where the early planning is taking place for our so-called Disney World Project. Now, the purpose of this film is to bring you up to date about some of the plans for Disney World.”A little later, he said,“The sketches and plans you will see today are simply a starting point, our first overall thinking about Disney World. Everything in this room may change time and time again as we move ahead, but the basic philosophy of what we’re planning for Disney World is going to remain very much as it is right now…”That was the part I never forgot: Walt Disney knew his plan would evolve into something different than he imagined.Eighteen years ago Princess Pennie decided to buy some land and build a non-profit school for entrepreneurs, storytellers, and educators. We knew it would have a classroom tower with a library mezzanine and on-campus housing so that students wouldn’t have to sleep in hotel rooms.Everything else was an afterthought.Chapel Dulcinea was chosen by 1,111 brides in 2017, making it the most popular wedding chapel on earth. A free wedding chapel wasn’t part of the original plan, but if you’ve ever walked the campus at Wizard Academy, it’s hard to imagine it not being there.A certification course for the training of whiskey sommeliers (storytellers) wasn’t part of the original plan, either. Nor was The Crowded Barrel whiskey distillery.* And we could never have dreamed that Wizard Academy’s YouTube channel, The Whiskey Vault, would become the #1 whiskey-review channel on earth.We couldn’t have imagined it because streaming, online video did not exist in the year 2000.And now the Rocinante gym.A couple of years ago, Brian Clapp donated state-of-the art gym equipment but it never got used because it was housed in a part of the campus where students never go. The solution? Build a sleek, cantilevered gym covered in glittering silver metal with an 18-foot glass wall looking at Chapel Dulcinea, and put it next to the sidewalk between Spence Manor and Engelbrecht House.And of course we’ll be starting The House of the Lost Boys – your third student mansion – as soon as the gym is complete, probably in about 60 days.But that’s not the big news. No, not by a long shot.In late spring, 2019, the American Small Business Institute will be launching an important new certification course, The Ad Writer’s Masters Class, a one-year online course – 26 modules, followed by 26 essay assignments – followed by a three-day, face-to-face working examination by a board of Master Ad Writers.This is a really big deal.And very expensive. (12k, minus alumni discount)When you finally pass your board exams – and you can try as often as you want – you will be certified and admitted into The Ad Writers Guild, with appropriate pomp and fanfare and physical glitteralia.Because after all, the American Small Business Institute is an extension of that wonderful dreamscape called Wizard Academy.Indy says you should visit him in the rabbit hole. You know how to get in, right?Roy H. WilliamsPS – If you want to be notified when the Ad Writer’s Masters Class is about to be officially announced, email Daniel@WizardAcademy.org* The Crowded Barrel whiskey distillery isn’t technically located on Wizard Academy property. It was built with private funding on property owned by the academy’s very friendly next-door-neighbors, Roy and Pennie Williams.

Two brothers were locked out of their home, so they climbed onto the roof and entered the house through the chimney. When they crawled out of the fireplace, one of them had soot on his face, the other did not. The clean-faced brother immediately went into the bathroom and washed his face. The brother with soot on his face did not. Why?We are confused by the actions of the brothers until we put ourselves in their shoes and see the world through their eyes.The clean-faced brother looked at the sooty-faced brother and assumed they were both in the same condition, so he went and washed his face. Likewise, the sooty-faced brother did not know he needed to wash, because he was looking at the brother whose face was clean.We assume that we are like other people, and that they are like us.This is the assumption that misinformed the brothers.This is the assumption that misinforms the salesperson.Do you put yourself into the shoes of each customer and see the world through their eyes, or do you assume that they are like you?Do you unconsciously assume that your customer has your financial limitations? Do you secretly believe that they should do what you would do?These are the reasons you struggle as a salesperson.You believe you are being empathetic, but you are not.You aren’t putting yourself into their shoes; you’re putting them into yours.Roy H. Williams

Indy Beagle posted a T-shirt in the rabbit hole that said, “If life gives you melons, you might be dyslexic.” Princess Pennie laughed when she read it.If that T-shirt had said, “If life gives you oranges, you might be dyslexic,” would she – or anyone else – have laughed?Pleasant surprise is the foundation of delight.Confusion is the foundation of frustration.When something unexpected happens, but it makes sense, it is surprising.When something unexpected happens and it makes no sense, it is confusing.To get a click online is to get attention.But to hold that attention requires engagement.Are you satisfied with getting a click, or would you also like to make the sale?People who are engaged are looking for closure. They are following a mystery that needs to be solved.Headlines and subject lines that create a mystery are more effective than those that solve one.No mystery, no click.No continuing mystery, no engagement.The key to holding attention is to introduce a new mystery just as you solve the previous one. This works online exactly as it works in literature, mass media, and entertainment.The quicker your sequences of mystery and resolution, the more likely you are to hold the attention of your audience. This is what separates good stand-up comics from people who take too long to tell a joke.Consider the mysteries implied by these famous opening lines:Call me Ishmael. – Moby DickIt was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen. — 1984This is the saddest story I have ever heard. — The Good SoldierIt was a wrong number that started it. — City of GlassI am an invisible man. —Invisible Man124 was spiteful. — BelovedIn a sense, I am Jacob Horner. — The End of the RoadThey shoot the white girl first. — ParadiseI write this sitting in the kitchen sink. — I Capture the CastleWhen your subject lines harbor mysteries, you’ll see your open rate rise like the sun on Easter morning. And if you solve that mystery just as you introduce a second one, you will have achieved engagement.Novelists and playwrights have known this for hundreds of years.Screenwriters and comedians have known it for decades.I’m merely suggesting that you might experiment with it in your ads.Who knows? It might work for ad writers, too.Roy H. Williams

Day after day, business owners tell ad writers, “We just need more sales opportunities. It’s a numbers game. If you double our traffic, we’ll double our sales. Now show me what you can do.”These business owners don’t understand that today’s close rate dictates tomorrow’s sales opportunities.Some businesses will run customers off faster than a good ad writer can bring them in. But still they will tell that ad writer, “We just need more sales opportunities. Double our traffic and we’ll double our sales.”What that company really needs, of course, is to increase their close rate. And the secret to increasing your close rate is to align the personality of your sales process with the personality of your advertising.But that will never happen as long as your sales manager remains untethered from your ad writer.It’s easier to grow a company that closes 6 out of 10 sales opportunities than it is to grow a company that closes only 2 out of 10. Straightforward math would tell you that it should be only 3 times easier, but then you’d be forgetting about the exponential impact of customer referrals.There are exceptions, of course. A company with a truly extraordinary product can utterly botch their sales training and customer service and still do just fine. This is particularly true in technology and in restaurants.But let’s talk about that disconnect between your sales manager and your ad writer.This is a blind spot shared by the majority of American companies.Think of those people in your company who respond to customer inquiries as your first responders. These first responders include the people who answer telephones and who respond to emails and to live chat inquiries on your website. And then, of course, there are your service people and your salespeople.Your first responders are continuing a conversation that began with your advertising. And your customer has clear expectations about who they expect your people to be and how they expect your people to act.When your first responders speak and act differently than your customer expected, that customer feels ambushed and betrayed. Remove this disconnection by being the company your customer believes you to be, and you’ll see your close rate climb faster than a happy squirrel harvesting acorns in an oak tree.Strong ad campaigns communicate a distinctly memorable corporate “personality” that distinguishes a company from its competitors. Rippling that attractive personality through your advertising is especially important when the public perceives your products and services to be essentially the same as those of your competitors.Win the heart and the mind will follow. The mind will always create logic to justify what the heart has already decided.A good ad writer will cause the public to like you.Now all you have to do is be the company the public liked.And now you know the most important truth of advertising.Your ads don’t communicate a distinctly memorable personality?Then you don’t have a strong ad campaign.You don’t have a high close rate?Then you don’t have alignment between the expectation of your customers and the performance of your first responders.Are your first responders using the signature phrases that made your ads famous? Do they embody the corporate personality communicated in those ads?Or is your sales process independent from your advertising?If you want to talk more about it, Indy Beagle has a lot to share with you in the rabbit hole.Roy H. Williams

Is your bandwidth keeping you from fulfilling your purpose?Do you have too much to do and too little time?Your bandwidth is limited by:1. the number of hours in a day.2. your physical stamina and capacity.3. your mental and emotional limits as a human being.4. your inability to juggle the number of desires, needs, demands, and emergencies hurtling toward you.No matter how hard you try to overcome these limits, they are there, they are real, and they will remain.Chances are, you’ve been at the limits of your bandwidth for quite some time.Bandwidth is easy to explain, but purpose is hard to explain because it can come from multiple sources, be evaluated from multiple perspectives, and be known by many names.1. Is your purpose the achievement of your goals, the fulfillment of your vision, the crossing of that last item off your bucket list?2. Is your purpose dictated to you by your circumstances? It is to fulfill your duties as a son or daughter, husband or wife, father or mother, grandfather or grandmother, or as a loyal friend or trusted employee?3. Is your purpose chosen for you by something or someone bigger than yourself? Destiny, the universe, or God?I have no argument with any of these beliefs.Here’s my concern: I am subject to the tyranny of the “merely urgent” every day, so I rarely stop to ask myself, “What would be the consequences if I chose to ignore this?”I find myself putting off the truly important, day after day, to take care of an endless list of small-but-urgent obligations.Is it just me, or are you doing this also?I’m not asking for your help or advice.And I’m certainly not telling you how to live your life.I’m just sharing a personal observation:Urgent things are rarely important.Important things are rarely urgent.And learning to tell one from the otheris the key to a happier, healthier, more productive life.If you and I were to say yes to one big thing each day, and say no to all the little things, how much more might we accomplish?Roy H. Williams

Ten days ago, at the annual meeting of the most innovative and successful small business owners in America,* I was handed a series of questions to answer during the problem-solving session. Most of the questions had to do with recurrent frustrations in business.When I saw the group excitedly taking notes, I was a little bit surprised. Then it hit me, “I’m a lot older than most of these people, so they haven’t learned these things yet.”If they were glad to hear those solutions, maybe you will be, too.Here are a few of the things I told them:Your work doesn’t always speak for itself.Explain what you did and why you did it. Talk about a couple of ideas you considered, but rejected, and explain why you rejected those solutions. Only then will your client understand the thought and planning and effort you put into what you are delivering to them.You have maximum credibility when you put the sale at risk.Agreements established before money changes hands are the agreements that will forever guide the relationship. The time to explain what will not be included is when the sale hasn’t yet been made. Clearly and memorably emphasize anything you need your customer to remember in the future. To gloss over a possible disappointment during your presentation – or to bury it in the fine print – is to deceive your customer and poison their future trust in you. So say the difficult thing up-front. Don’t wait until later.When your customer rejects the solution you have prepared, don’t argue with them, even when they are clearly wrong.Just do the extra work. Only after they have approved your second solution will you have the credibility to convince them not to use it. To debate with them earlier will only make it look like you’re trying to avoid doing the extra work. But don’t be surprised if your second solution is every bit as good as your first. When that happens, just go with the second solution. Remember: it’s not about “winning.” It’s about making your customer happy.Never be afraid to charge more than anyone else in your category.And never be afraid to pay the highest price, either. The only company that can fund a customer’s hoped-for experience is the company with a fat profit margin. The services you get for half-price aren’t the same services you get for full price.It’s harder to get attention in larger cities because there is so much more happening.Ad campaigns take longer to get established in large cities due to the customer distraction caused by marketplace noise. The upside of large cities, however, is that the market potential is so much higher. Businesses in smaller towns often take off quicker, only to later face a sharply limited market potential due to the smaller population.Growing a local business from 2 or 3 percent of the market potential to 20 percent of the market potential is easier (and more fun) than lifting it the next 5 points, (from 20% to 25%.)The reason for this is because you will have picked all the low-hanging fruit by the time you are making 20 percent of all the sales in your category. In other words, you’ll be selling everyone who likes to buy the way you like to sell. Growing the 8 points between 25 and 33 percent of market potential will likely require you to make some changes you have long been reluctant to make. And growing a business beyond 33 percent of market potential is virtually impossible. The only exception to this is when the category has a shortage of committed competitors.Here are a few different ways to calculate market potential for any business:(Try to do it three different ways and see if the numbers agree. In my experience, they usually fall within a 10 percent window of variation. The two most reliable numbers are (1) the educated guesses of the sales volumes of each client in the category, and (2.) the NAICS totals, which are based on taxation data.)List every competitor in your category and attach to their name your best guess regarding their sales volume. Total these, and be sure to include your own volume. This is your market potential.Extract the total U.S. sales for your category from the NAICS data at www.census.gov. Divide this number by the population of the U.S. to get a per-capita average. Multiply that average times the population of your trade area. This is your market potential. NAICS data is clunky and hard to isolate, but it’s there and it’s reliable. Just keep digging.Most trade magazines will publish the annual U.S. volume for the category they cover. Divide this number by the population of the U.S. to get a per-capita average. Multiply that average times the population of your trade area. This is your market potential.Ask Google for the national and/or state sales per-capita in your category. Calculate a per-capita average, then multiply that average times the population of your trade area. This is your market potential.NOTE: The weakness of methods 2 through 4 are the assumption that the population of every city behaves roughly the same as the population of every other city. This is why state data is better than national data, but your local store-by-store estimate (#1) will likely be the most accurate of all.Here’s how to determine whether a service category is populated with strong competitors:Compile the total number of Google reviews for the entire category in the trade area. What percentage of that total number of reviews belong to the company with the largest number? If the leader has only 6 to 10 percent, your category is begging for a leader to step in and bloody everyone’s nose. If the leader owns 20-or-more percent of all reviews, look to see if the second, third, and fourth-place finishers are close behind. If they are, this is going to be a tougher-than-average marketplace in which to compete in that category. If you see a leader that owns 30+ percent of all the Google reviews, these people are a force with which to be reckoned. The exception, of course, is if you’re in a small town without a full complement of competitors.NOTE: This methodology assumes that a company’s percentage of the total reviews for their category will reflect (1.) the size of that company’s customer base, or (2.) that the company has a high degree of customer engagement. Either way, these percentages are an indicator of the relative strength and weakness of competitors in that category.Hopefully, you’ll find some of these tools to be useful.Have a great week.Roy H. Williams

Responsibility limits your Freedom,and freedom is a good thing.So is responsibility wrong and evil?Sigh.The only hard choice in lifeis the choice between two good things.Justice and Mercyare at opposite endsof a teeter-totter.Honesty and Loyaltywrestle in your heart,do they not?Opportunity and Securityare inversely proportionate.One will decreaseas the other increases.These are a few of the examples that spring to mind when we read the words of the Nobel Prize-winning physicist, Niels Bohr: “The opposite of a correct statement is a false statement. But the opposite of a profound truth may well be another profound truth.”Keep in mind that Niels was a physicist, not a philosopher.Jonathan Haidt shines some light on this subject in his book, The Righteous Mind, citing a wealth of research that indicates how our beliefs come primarily from our intuitions, with rational thought coming afterward, to justify our initial beliefs.That’s an uncomfortable thought, I agree.But does that make it wrong?Fifteen years before Knopf Doubleday published The Righteous Mind, Bard Press published The Wizard of Ads. On its frontispiece you will find The Seven Laws of the Advertising Universe.The third law is this:“Intellect and Emotion are partners who do not speakthe same language. The intellect finds logic to justifywhat the emotions have decided. Win the heartsof the people, their minds will follow”I was able to write those words with confidence because Dr. Roger Sperry won the Nobel Prize in 1981 for his documentation of brain lateralization, which says in effect that we don’t have a single brain divided into two halves so much as we have two separate, competing brains.Our left hemisphere is logical, rational, sequential, deductive reasoning.It also contains the language functions.Our right hemisphere recognizes patterns and is intuitive. These can be patterns of behavior, patterns in history, or patterns in auditory or visual phenomena. But our right hemispheres don’t know right from wrong, true from false, or fact from fiction. That’s the left brain’s job.Speaking of the brain, Dr. Sperry said, “Each hemisphere of the brain is indeed a conscious system in its own right, perceiving, thinking, remembering, reasoning, willing, and emoting, all at a characteristically human level, and . . . both the left and the right hemisphere may be conscious simultaneously in different, even in mutually conflicting, mental experiences that run along in parallel.”So we have an uptight, suspicious, legalistic left brain, and a free-wheeling, ready-to-party, intuitive and mystical right brain that doesn’t require proof or evidence. It is always willing to believe.Was evolution the origin of our species,with our brains evolving over billions of years,or did God simply create us this way?In any event, you can be sure that we haveopposing brain hemispheres for a reason.I wonder what it is.Roy H. Williams