Wizard of Ads Monday Morning Memo

The pivotal moments in our lives are rarely announced with trumpets and fanfare.But wouldn’t it be great if they were?“Hello, this is God speaking. You’re at an inflection point in your life and although you don’t suspect it, the wisdom you’re about to receive from that old man over there is going to empower you to achieve things you never imagined. So pay attention, okay? This is a really big moment. Don’t let it slip past you.”No, that doesn’t happen. Not the voice, anyway.But the moment definitely happens.We just don’t realize it until years later.You are Frodo Baggins. You are on a journey. The old man you meet in the woods is Gandalf. He will equip you with what you need.You are Luke Skywalker. You are on a journey. The old man you meet in the woods is Obi Wan Kenobi. He will equip you with what you need. For now.Later, you face challenges for which Obi Wan did not equip you. You are lost in the woods again. You meet another old man. His name is Yoda. He is funny and small but pay attention to him. He will equip you with what you need.Now you are you.You are about to meet an old man in the woods. His name is Warren Buffett.I’m going to pretend to be God, okay?Don’t laugh. I’m doing this for you.“You’re at an inflection point in your life and the wisdom you’re about to receive is going to empower you to achieve things you never imagined. So pay attention, okay? This is a really big moment. Don’t let it slip past you.”“I was genetically blessed with a certain wiring that’s very useful in a highly developed market system where there’s lots of chips on the table, and I happen to be good at that game. Ted Williams wrote a book called The Science of Hitting and in it he had a picture of himself at bat and the strike zone broken into, I think, 77 squares. And he said if he waited for the pitch that was really in his sweet spot he would bat .400 and if he had to swing at something on the lower corner he would probably bat .235. And in investing I’m in a ‘no called strike’ business which is the best business you can be in. I can look at a thousand different companies and I don’t have to be right on every one of them, or even fifty of them. So I can pick the ball I want to hit. And the trick in investing is just to sit there and watch pitch after pitch go by and wait for the one right in your sweet spot. And if people are yelling, ‘Swing, you bum,’ ignore ’em. There’s a temptation for people to act far too frequently in stocks simply because they’re so liquid. Over the years you develop a lot of filters. But I do know what I call my ‘circle of competence’ so I stay within that circle and I don’t worry about things that are outside that circle. Defining what your game is – where you’re going to have an edge – is enormously important.”– Warren Buffett, in the 2017 documentary, Becoming Warren BuffettYou become self-aware when you realize what is – and what is not – in your circle of competence.Most people are not self-aware.Warren Buffett is acutely self-aware.“But I do know what I call my ‘circle of competence’ so I stay within that circle and I don’t worry about things that are outside that circle.”Warren, do you have any last words of wisdom for my friend?“Defining what your game is – where you’re going to have an edge – is enormously important.”That was a big moment.Don’t let it slip past you.Roy H. WilliamsPS – ‘The old man you meet in the woods’ is, as often as not, a woman.PPS – “Intuition becomes increasingly valuable in the new information society precisely because there is so much data.” – John Naisbitt

The Random Quotes database at MondayMorningMemo.com currently contains 4,376 quotes.About a third of these are quotes you can easily find online.Nearly half are delightful passages I’ve transcribed from books, movies, or TV shows, and archived for future reference.Five percent are witty and wonderful statements made by friends during lunch or in casually written emails.And exactly 455 of those 4,376 quotes are words of my own.Quoting oneself might appear to be insufferably egotistical, but in truth, my only objective is to capture thoughts I might want to think upon in the future. Hence my latest addition to the database, made only moments ago, “Boxwine and Soupline are barstool buddies of Spraytan and Parlay. The girl is Parlay’s sister, Parfait.”Innocent readers who stumble upon that quote in the future will doubtless scratch their heads and say, “What the hell?” never suspecting it’s only a note I scribbled to myself about characters in a short story yet to be written.But today, because you are special, I will explain the backstory of those 5 characters.A dozen years ago I hired Devin Wright and trained him to be a media buyer, a professional negotiator. At least once a day I would pop into his office and ask him a wildly unexpected question. Devin would always laugh, and that would be that.But one day about 7 years ago I popped in, pointed at him and asked, “Devin, is that a spray tan?”Devin sputtered and coughed and denied that he would ever do such a thing, so of course being from Oklahoma, I was required to forever thereafter introduce him as Spraytan Wright.Wine snob Boxwine Harrison has the office next to Spraytan.I decided that Boxwine’s little brother would be Soupline.“But whence,” you ask, “come Parlay and Parfait?”Be patient. I’m getting to that.A week ago, Spraytan put $200 on an online gambling site so that he could place bets on sporting events. He quickly turned his $200 into $600, then got bored and lost the whole $600 playing blackjack.His pirate friend Dave Neubert asked, “Did you check your bonus money?”“My what?”“When you put money into an account, they often give you a few bonus dollars just to keep you gambling.”Spraytan checked, and sure enough, he had 4 dollars and 41 cents in bonus money. So he chose 12 fights that would happen later that day, picked his 12 fighters, and parlayed his $4.41 across the entire dozen, which means he had to pick 12 winners in advance or his bet would be forfeited. If even one of his fighters lost, Spraytan would get nothing.Big deal, right? It’s four dollars and 41 cents. And not even his money.So he went to get a haircut.When he got up from the barber chair, Spraytan checked on his bet. Ten of the 12 fights were over, and his fighters had won all 10 fights! He drove home quickly, to say the least.They tell me the gravel from his tires is still flying above that parking lot.Sliding sideways into his driveway, Spraytan ran into his house, turned on the TV and began shouting instructions to fighter number 11. But that guy lost. Then, when Spraytan checked his bet, it turns out that he had bet on the other guy, the winner!When his 12th fighter won the 12th fight, Spraytan looked at his cell phone screen to see that his four dollars and 41 cents was now three thousand, seven hundred and twelve dollars and two cents.When he told me what happened, I said, “Spraytan, I believe you’ve earned a new nickname. After today, I’m going to start calling you Parlay.”He smiled.“But of course Parlay isn’t a word I’m really familiar with. The truth is I never heard that word until you told me your story just now, so I’m sure you’ll understand if I occasionally call you Parfait.”The smile disappeared and Devin said, “I think we should just stick with Spraytan.”Walking across the parking lot, I began thinking about a series of adventures involving Boxwine and Spraytan and Parlay and Parfait and Boxwine’s little brother, Soupline.And then I wrote myself a note and posted it where I’d be sure not to lose it.Self-quotation doesn’t necessarily mean you’re egotistical.Sometimes it just means you’re nuts.Roy H. Williams

When you have nothing to say, be careful that you don’t pay money to say it.“What do you mean?”Have you ever paid a premium to target the right audience and then made an offer that failed to move them?“Everyone has paid for ads that didn’t work.”Did you realize that your message was at fault, or did you assume that you had mis-targeted?“Well, even when it doesn’t work, at least I get some name recognition.”[sigh] What am I going to do with you? Name recognition is enough only if your competitors are invisible or incompetent.“What do you mean?”Invisible means they don’t have the courage to advertise.Incompetent means their ads are even worse than yours.“But my ads are way better than average. They look and feel professional.”Most ads – even professional ads – aren’t written to persuade. They are written not to offend. This is why most ads speak in worn-out clichés. Why not just add a stock photo and get it over with?“Are you saying that most ads are ineffective?”Even the weakest ads have an effect, but what you’re looking for is long-lasting, cumulative impact.“Can you speak more plainly, please?”Bad advertising is about your product. Good advertising is about your customer and their life. And your customer values nothing so much as they value that circle of people who are close to them. Your customer relates to those people. Your customer identifies with those people. Your customer forgives those people when they screw up.“I thought we were talking about advertising here. You make it sound like I should spend my ad budget trying to make friends.”That’s right! I’m talking to you about trying to make friends! When your customer appreciates you and your comments, they consider you to be a friend, even though they have never met you.“So if I don’t talk about my product, what do I talk about?”Talk about what your customer already cares about. Don’t try to convince them to care about what you wish they cared about.“So what does my customer already care about?”They care about that circle of people I mentioned. They care about the people who care about them. You have the power – if you dare – to take your place in that circle.“But how?”By causing your customer to identify with you.“But why will they identify with me?”They will do it partly because of what you say and how you say it. But they will do it mostly because of what you don’t say.“Okay, so tell me what not to say.”Don’t talk constantly about your company and your product. This just makes your ads sound like ads.“As much as I hate to say it, you’re beginning to make a little bit of sense. But can you give me an example of what you’re talking about?”I’ll ask Indy Beagle to put some recent examples on the first few pages of the rabbit hole.“The rabbit hole? What’s that?”It’s a weekly e-zine for self-selected insiders.“Where?”Just click the image of Indy Beagle at the top of any Monday Morning Memo and you’re in. Indy is reading over my shoulder right now and wagging his tail. I think he has something in mind. I’m curious to see what it is.Roy H. Williams

They told you it was called, “reading between the lines.”But what they didn’t tell you was that the writer put it there – between the lines – for you to figure out on your own.Speak the truth and people will doubt you. But if you can tempt those people to follow you to where they can discover that truth on their own, you will have convinced them to the core of their soul.You’ve got to let them find the treasure on their own.But it’s okay to leave a trail of breadcrumbs.Just don’t be too obvious about it.When the crumbs are too big or too close together, people feel manipulated.You’ll know you’ve done the job perfectly when the person whose eyes you’ve opened wants to tell you about “this wonderful new thing” they have discovered.Mothers go through this every day.How old were you when you finally figured out that most of what you were “discovering” and sharing with your mom was just stuff she had placed in your path for you to find?Wives are good at this, too. Princess Pennie does it with such subtlety and grace that it’s often days or weeks before I realize what she has done.But I am neither a mother nor a wife, so my only option is to clumsily remind you of things you already know. You will then be free to say, “Yes, I already knew that, but thanks for the reminder.”These are the things I would not have you forget:(Or should it be, “These are the things I would have you not forget:”? I’ll let you decide. And I’m reasonably certain that my colon–quotation mark–question mark sequence two sentences ago is improper punctuation, but I can’t figure out how to phrase the question for Google, so with your permission I’ll just move on, okay?)Never claim to be honest. Just say things that only an honest person would say. Having followed the breadcrumbs, the listener will then conclude, “Wow. This person is really honest.”Never claim to be generous. Just freely give what only a generous person would give. The recipient will then conclude, “Wow. This person is really generous.”Never claim to be intelligent. Just listen intently and nod your head as though you understand. The speaker will then conclude, “Wow. This person really gets it.”Now that I think about it, never claim anything at all. Just demonstrate the quality you want to be known for.In other words, shut up and do the thing.Don’t claim things.Demonstrate them.I’m talking about advertising, of course.But I think the same advice also goes for pretty much every other situation in life.Did you notice the anomaly in point 3, the one about intelligence? Did you notice what was missing? Did you hear what I did not say?I did not tell you to, “Just say something that only an intelligent person would say.”Because that NEVER works. Trying to sound intelligent just makes you look like a pompous ass.But you already knew that.You’re such a great listener.Thanks.Roy H. Williams

Listen, my young apprentice, and I will release you from your chains.Every door of opportunity begins as a window in the mind.Look through that window of imagination and glimpse a world that could be, should be, ought to be someday. Keep looking… and watch it grow into a door of Opportunity through which you can pass into an entirely different future.Opportunity never knocks. It hangs thick in the air all around you. You breathe it unthinking, and dissipate it with your sighs.Opportunity never knocks. It appears, flickering, like faulty neon at a nondescript fork in the road.Opportunity never knocks. It whispers, a tickle in your distracted mind.1Yes, opportunity begins as a window in the mind through which we glimpse possible futures.And then one day we leap through that window.“What is sure, predictable, inevitable – the one certain thing you know concerning your future, and mine?”“That we shall die.”“Yes, there’s really only one question that can be answered, and we already know the answer… The only thing that makes life possible is permanent, intolerable uncertainty; not knowing what comes next.” 2There is a space between yesterday and tomorrow. Do you know the place I mean?It’s called Life.And you’ve got to make a living if you’re going to have a life.How do you want to be paid?Do you want to be paid for your time,or do you want you be paid for your knowledge?Listen, my young apprentice, to what an old man knows.There is no future in being paid by the hour.You must escape from that financial prison.Become good at something.Become astoundingly good.Do you see a person who is skilled in their work?That person will stand before kings. 3Do you wait tables?Become the server whose tables spend twice as much money as the other tables. Restaurants around the world will hire you to teach their servers how to do the same. But don’t let those restaurant owners pay you for your time. Insist that you be paid for the difference you made.Do you stack bricks?Stack them in a way that no one has ever seen bricks stacked before. You have sizes, shapes, and colors. Stack them so they can’t be ignored! But don’t let your customers pay you for your time. Be paid for the difference you made.Listen, my young apprentice, to what an old man knows.Craftsmen are paid for the quality of their work.But craftsmen are paid by the hour.An artist is paid for the impact of their art.Artists are paid for the difference they made.The only thing that separates a craft from an artis how you agree to be paid.Roy H. Williams1 The Monday Morning Memo, July 18, 20052 Ursula K. Le Guin, The Left Hand of Darkness, chapter 53 Proverbs 22:29 (NASB)Do you see a man skilled in his work?He will stand before kings;He will not stand before obscure men.

Every few months, I remind my partners of something that took me way too long to learn.I say, “When a person believes in what they’re doing – even if it’s an imperfect plan – let them keep doing it. Give them advice and try to open their eyes, but don’t fight them too hard, because, ‘A person convinced against their will, remains unconvinced, still.’ So be careful. If you finally convince a person to quit doing what they believe in, and to start doing what you would do if you owned their company, they’re probably going to fail.”People who have spent time with me may find this difficult to believe, but I’m a lot less combative than I used to be.Here is the non-combative technique I use.Listen attentively to the person with whom you disagree.Let them speak until they’re finished.Find a point of agreement, something you can honestly endorse.Tell them why you agree with them. And if they have altered your opinion in any way, confess that to them, as well.Use the point you agree upon to introduce another point which you feel might expand and enrich their perspective.Don’t misunderstand me. I’m not talking about introducing “alternative facts.”I’m talking about introducing your idea as a logical extension of the idea about which you have already agreed.This will cause the other person to feel like they already knew the thing that seemingly just occurred to you.In essence, you’ll be giving them an entirely new perspective while reinforcing what they already believe.Bottom line: Try to avoid telling people they are wrong. You’ll make more progress and achieve more change if you can figure out a way to tell them they are right.Here’s a recent example:An air conditioning client was convinced that we should target the perfect customer profile by using “addressable TV” ads. This would allow us to target specific households individually – rather than as a demographic, geographic, or psychographic group – by using data provided by broadcaster set-top boxes (STBs) and over-the-top (OTT) streaming devices like Apple TV, Google Chromecast, Roku, or Amazon Firestick.The CEO of the air conditioning company said, “Why should we pay to reach people who live in apartments, or who rent their houses from landlords, or who have a home warranty contract with a company other than ours? Wouldn’t it make more sense to target ONLY those homeowners living in houses old enough to need a new air conditioner, and who don’t have a home warranty?”“I love that idea!” I said, “And we’ve already got some great TV ads we could air!” I gave him a high five, then asked, “How much did they say it will cost us?”“They said it will be extremely efficient since we’ll be aiming a rifle with a scope instead of using a shotgun like we’re doing now.”“I don’t doubt that a bit,” I said, “but we do need to find out how much they’re going to charge us per 1,000 households they deliver (CPM.) We’re currently paying a cost-per-thousand (CPM) of $3 on broadcast radio. Now I’m DEFINITELY willing to pay more than $3 per thousand to reach the PERFECT customer rather than the unfiltered, mixed-bag, untargeted customers we’re currently reaching, but how many untargeted customers is one PERECTLY TARGETED customer worth? Is it 4-to-one? 7-to-one? Are we willing to trade 10 untargeted customers for 1 targeted customer? How many are we willing to trade? I think at some point there’s going to be at least one perfect customer in our current, unfiltered assortment of broadcast TV viewers and broadcast radio listeners, don’t you think? And then we get all those other people for free. But I still think this “addressable TV” thing is a great idea. So call and tell them exactly who you want to target and ask for the cost-per-thousand.”After he checked into it, he learned that the cheapest we might possibly pay was 12x to 16x our current cost-per-thousand, but with the layers of targeting he wanted to add, we would be trading at least 26 broadcast radio listeners for every 1 “perfectly targeted” homeowner.After thinking it over, he decided we were already reaching more than 1 “perfectly targeted” homeowner in every group of 26 unfiltered, mixed bag, untargeted radio listeners.My point is this: I didn’t have to argue. I didn’t have to debate. And my client, the CEO of that business, was treated like a CEO.I’m just the consultant who agreed with him.Roy H. Williams

I’ve often wondered what happened to him.Broken Arrow, Oklahoma, 1979: Pennie and I had just moved into our first house.It…was built before Oklahoma became a state,had never had a mortgage on it,had been expanded 3 different times,and was now barely 800 sq. ft.,had sat vacant for more than 10 years,and was sold to us for $21,500.It wasn’t an impressive neighborhood.Pennie looked out our front window and saw a frightening-looking man working on his car. She mentioned it to me. I looked out the window and saw a man in his mid-30s wearing ragged clothes with a dirty pony-tail that trailed below his belt. He had rented the unlivable shack across the street.I walked outside to meet him. “Hi. I’m Roy. I live over there.”“Hi. I’m Harold.”I helped him fix his car, a worn-out Chevy Vega.Harold and I became good friends. He was soft-spoken, respectful, and sentimental. Pennie liked him, too.One Sunday afternoon, the phone rang. It was Harold. “Roy, do you have $400 in cash?”Miraculously, I did have $400 in cash that day, an extremely rare occurrence. “Harold, if you had called on any other day, I wouldn’t have been able to say yes. But I do, in fact, have $400.”“Man, I need you to come and bail me out of jail. I ran a red light at midnight and didn’t have my driver’s license with me. Can you come and bail me out? I can pay you back as soon as we get to my house, I swear.”“I’ll be right there.”As we pulled away from the police station, Harold said, “If you will, I need you to do me one more favor.”“Okay, what is it?”“Follow me to my boss’s house. He’s been wanting to buy my Vega and stuff a big motor in it to make himself a drag racing car. I’ve decided to sell it to him.”We stopped at Harold’s house where he paid me back the $400, then I followed him a few miles to where his boss lived. Harold’s job was to mix cement all day and hand it up in 5 gallon buckets to the brick masons on the scaffold. They paid him in cash each week.Harold gave his boss the car keys, got in my car again, looked at me with tear-filled eyes and said, “One last favor?”“Whatever you need.”“Drive me to the bus station.”“Harold, what’s going on?”He was blinking away the tears. “I’m going to buy a ticket on whatever bus is about to leave the station and I’m going to move to wherever that bus takes me. Roy, I’m an escaped convict.”It took me a few moments to find my voice. “What were you in for, Harold?”That’s when he told me his real name was Jeff-something. Sadly, I’ve forgotten Jeff’s last name because he spoke it just that one time, during a highly distracted moment, 39 years ago.“I had just turned eighteen when my Dad beat the crap out of me and I decided to leave home. I hitchhiked and slept in open fields for a couple of days until I ran out of money for food. I was walking down the road on the morning of the third day when I saw a farmer working all alone. I walked over and asked if he would give me a meal and pay me a few dollars if I helped him all day. He said he would. At the end of the day, he gave me a meal but claimed he never agreed to give me any money. I was really mad, so I walked out to his barn and took a 5-gallon can of gas and a .22 rifle he had for shooting rats and then I started walking down the road.”Back in those days, it was easy for hitchhikers to catch a ride when they were carrying a can of gas to give to whoever picked them up.“I was planning to sell the .22 at the nearest pawn shop. It never occurred to me that the farmer had seen me and called the sheriff. I had only walked about 200 yards when I was arrested and taken to jail.”“What happened next?”“I had been in jail a couple of weeks when I hid under a big pile of dirty clothes in a canvas laundry cart just before they rolled it onto the truck. I don’t weigh much, so no one noticed. Then, when they stopped at a traffic light, I jumped out of the dirty clothes and scrambled out the back of the truck. That was the first time I escaped.”My eyes grew big, I’m sure. “How many times have you escaped?”“The third time was two years ago. They always catch me because of a traffic violation. I don’t have a driver’s license.” He smiled a weak smile. “I was really lucky they caught me on a Saturday night because the fingerprint place isn’t open on Sundays. If you hadn’t bailed me out of jail, they would have walked into my cell tomorrow morning and called me by my real name.”“What were you in for the second and third time?”“Escaping. They always increase your sentence when you escape. I’ve been in and out of prison for 16 years.”“And the only thing you ever did was steal a 5-gallon can of gas and a .22 rifle?” Jeff could only nod as the tears ran into his beard. We didn’t talk for a while. Finally I asked, “How did you get out this last time?”“I went over the wall.”“What?”“I went over the wall.”“But how?”“Roy, if everyone and everything that made your life worth living was on the other side of a 30-foot cement wall, but your side of that wall was an unendurable hell, do you think you could figure out how to get over that wall?”I nodded yes.“Roy, it’s not the wall that keeps you in prison; it’s the guys with the rifles in the tower.”I quietly contemplated what he had said. After a moment, he continued.“You go over the wall when the guys with the rifles don’t scare you anymore. Because one way or the other, you’re not going to live another day in prison.”I’ve often wondered what happened to him.Roy H. Williams

Dear Radio,I’ve loved you all my life. In fact, I have more confidence in you than you have in yourself.But you have a blind spot, and it’s killing you: radio advertisers are reaching 100% of the city and convincing them 10% of the way, when they should be reaching 10% of the city and convincing them 100% of the way.You’re letting advertisers squander their money on reach without frequency.Your spot rate is determined by your reach, your audience size.The bigger your reach, the bigger your bank account.This is why you dance when you have a good book. 1You push reach.“We’re #1” means “We offer the most reach.”But your client’s success is determined by his frequency.I am your client. Sell me a schedule that gives me big reach with small frequency and I’ll soon be singing, “I tried radio and it didn’t work” at the top of my lungs.Sell me small reach with big frequency and I’ll take over your city, one station at a time. I’ll use relentless frequency to become a household word on a little station, then when that station’s weekly cume of many thousands of listeners 2 have grown my company into a bigger one, I’ll add another station, then another and another until I’m on every station in town.This is not theoretical. I’ve been doing it for 38 years and it has never failed to work. In truth, our clients across the U.S., Canada, and Australia are seeing greater success through radio today than ever before.Frequency should be non-negotiable. Why do you let people on the air without it?And since I sell products and services that have a long selling cycle, I’ll also need consistency.Consistency is the frequency of the frequency.52-week consistency is essential when your client has a long selling cycle. Things like engagement rings, A/C repair, home appliances, drain opening, legal services, auto repair, and insurance have long selling cycles. The way I can win these categories is to become the provider the customer thinks of immediately – and feels best about – when they, or any of the people in their circle of influence, finally need what I sell.The only clients who can succeed without consistency are sellers of food and entertainment – things with a short selling cycle – things we buy every day, or at least every week or two.Reach and frequency are not interchangeable.Who was it that decided we should multiply reach times frequency to calculate gross impressions, and then cast gross impressions as a percentage of the population to calculate gross rating points?The hunger for gross impressions and gross rating points always leads to the purchase of too much reach without enough frequency. When you multiply reach times frequency, you blur the line between the two. Reach is easy to obtain in a media mix. Frequency is not.Reach is not a substitution for frequency.Frequency must be protected at all costs.If I buy 100 gross rating points, I’ve reached the mathematical equivalent of 100% of the population of the trade area 1 time. It would take 1,000,000 gross impressions to give me 100 gross rating points in a city of 1,000,000 people. But does this mean I’ve reached 100% of the people 1 time? Or does it mean I’ve reached 50% of the people twice? Or does it mean I’ve reached 25% of the people 4 times? Or does it mean I’ve reached 10% of the people 10 times? Or does it mean I’ve reached 5% of the people 20 times? Or does it mean I’ve reached 1 sad bastard 1,000,000 times? Each of those scenarios is 100 gross rating points.The only numbers that really matter are:(1.) a weekly Frequency of at least 3.0 and(2.) 7-day Net Reach (18+) 3Sleep erases advertising. This is why you must always measure frequency within a window of 7 night’s sleep. It’s also why 52-week consistency is vital.This is the question that really matters: How many people (18+) can I reach at least 3 times each within 7 night’s sleep, 52 weeks in a row?If you sell me a 26-week buy spread out “on-a-week, off-a-week” over 52 weeks, you’re selling me a station that costs twice what I can afford. Soon I’ll join that other guy in singing “I tried radio and it didn’t work,” and a lot of people will hear us sing it.According to Kleiner Perkins, the average American spends 4% of their media time with print, but print is getting 9% of our national ad spend. Print is punching 5 points above their weight.The average American spends 13% of their media time listening to broadcast radio, but radio is getting only 9% of our national ad spend. If radio was punching 5 points above its weight, radio would enjoy 18% of the ad spend instead of just 9%.Is this doable? Is it possible for radio to double its annual revenues? You bet it is.Radio, to start winning 18% of the ad spend, all you need to do is:(1.) focus your attention on advertisers with a long selling cycle.(2.) make sure that every schedule achieves a 3-frequency (18+) each week, 52 weeks in a row.(3.) learn how to write engaging copy.This is the radio success formula that never fails.Roy H. Williams1 Nielsen Ratings2 “Cume” is cumulative audience, the total number of different people who listen to a station3 (18+) Adults 18 years of age and older

Is established information or new information more likely to be true?Which is more effective, planning or improvisation?Are people essentially good, or essentially selfish?Which is more important, individual rights or collective rights?Will the future of America be better than its past?Are low-income people less intelligent than high-income people?Is the Bible true, or just a collection of ancient folk stories?Are attractive people more reliable than unattractive ones?You may think those questions have obvious answers. But in truth, just as many people chose the opposites.Each of us has foundational assumptions upon which our worldviews are predicated.If your foundational assumptions are different than mine, you’ll interpret experiences, evidence, and data differently than I do.Psychologists call a foundational assumption a “cognitive bias,” but only if your assumption is tightly focused. If we’re discussing your entire collection of foundational assumptions, we’re talking about your “schema.”Your schema, or outlook, is how you believe the universe works.Asking a person to reconsider a foundational assumption is like asking them to change their religion.But every foundational assumption comes with a blind spot.This is true even if your foundational assumptions caused you to answer our opening 8 questions by saying, “Well, it depends on…”We often believe our foundational assumptions are shared by intelligent people everywhere.Because when you “know” something deeply and intrinsically, it’s hard to imagine other people not knowing it. This cognitive bias is often called “the curse of knowledge,” and it’s responsible for a high percentage of bad advertising because it will cause you to answer questions in your ads that no one was asking.Are you beginning to see why it’s important to be aware of your blind spots?Most of us refuse to believe we have blind spots, because to accept that you have blind spots is to accept that your foundational assumptions are flawed, and then who would you be?To point out another person’s blind spot is like undressing them in public; you will not be soon forgiven.And now you know why polite people “never discuss politics or religion” with people outside their own ingroup.And although this may sound Machiavellian, I share it with you not so that you might employ it, but so that you might guard yourself against it: It is easy to manipulate a person when you know their foundational assumptions.Don’t let people manipulate you.When you have the courage to recognize your foundational assumptions for what they are, you are more likely to be happy, more likely to be liked, more likely to experience personal peace.But this open-mindedness comes at a price: you will never be the leader of villagers with torches and pitchforks.But that was never really a goal of yours, was it?Was it?Roy H. Williams

A lawyer and a rabbi are arguing about what it means to be kind.It is an ancient argument.The lawyer thinks a “kind” person is always polite and considerate.The rabbi thinks “politeness” is superficial, and “considerate” simply means to consider the consequences before taking any action, but that true kindness comes at a price. The rabbi believes that true kindness will take insult, inconvenience or injury upon itself in order to save another person from the same.We read of this encounter between the lawyer and the rabbi in the Biblical book of Luke. You may remember the story of a traveler who is robbed, stripped of his clothing, beaten, and left half dead alongside the road.Jesus, the young rabbi, tells the lawyer that two religious people passed by the wounded traveler, but both of them avoided the man. Then, the member of an ethic minority came upon the injured traveler. The most common name for this ethnic minority was a racial slur in the day of Jesus, so to help make his point, Jesus used the racial slur as the name of the man: “a Samaritan.”According to Jesus, “the Samaritan,” at his own expense, took the injured traveler to an inn, treated his wounds, and paid the innkeeper to take care of him.Jesus then asked, “Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?”The lawyer, too polite to say “Samaritan,” said, “The one who had mercy on him.”Jesus said, “Go and do likewise.”Rabbi Jesus was clearly demonstrating that kindness costs the giver, and that it is our actions that define us, not our origins.Disagreements occur when there is a lack of definition of terms. When there is no agreed-upon definition of a word, arguments will revolve around it.I believe the word that has the largest number of conflicting definitions today is the word “Christian.”If we were to poll our nation, we would doubtless discover countless definitions for “Christian,” but I believe most of them would fall somewhere in the middle of a three-cornered continuum.At one extreme of that triangle, a Christian is a believer in Christianity, a religion founded by Jesus, who came to give us a new moral code and teach us a better way to live. This Christian is patriotic and rejects behaviors that he or she believes to be immoral.At the second extreme of that triangle, a Christian is a believer in Jesus as God Incarnate, who came to earth to purchase eternal life for all who would believe. This Christian does not believe that Jesus came to deliver a new moral code, but to die so that we might live.The third extreme of our triangle is a definition occasionally embraced by people who do not identify themselves as “Christian,” because they define a Christian as:a religious person who believes poor people deserve to be poor because “anyone can pull themselves up by their bootstraps through good decisions and hard work.”a religious person who is in favor of guns, but against gays.a religious person who believes Americans are exceptional, and that all other nations are inferior.It is not my purpose today to start an argument, but to defuse one.Christianity and politics are in turmoil today due to the lack of an agreed-upon definition of the word, “Christian.” I have no intention of offering my own definition of Christian, since it is unimportant to anyone but me. And I do not expect your definition of “Christian” to be any of the three extremes I named. I expect you have a complex, nuanced definition that you feel strongly about. You may even be anxious to share it in the hopes of “clearing the air.”Please don’t. AMy only goal today is to ask you to consider – for just a moment –that a good person might hold views and opinions dramatically different from your own without becoming “the enemy.”This person could even become your trusted friend.Even if they are “a Samaritan.”Roy H. Williams