Wizard of Ads Monday Morning Memo

Whiners, blame shifters, indignant people, people with victim mentalities, online trolls, people who demand things and cheerless givers of “constructive criticism” are all herded into one decrepit old corral in my brain.That corral is a category in my mind.As these unhappy cows moan “moooo” I walk sadly away and think “dog food.”I put them in that corral so they can’t follow me. Cows stand in the way of getting things done.Occasionally one of the cows gets tired of hanging out with all the mooers and moaners and whiners and kicks open the gate to escape. I applaud that cow. I love that cow. The world needs more cows like that one.I remember the day I kicked open the gate.A funny thing happens when a cow kicks open a gate, escapes the other cows, struggles to the hilltop and views the far horizon: it grows a horn from its forehead.Is this a unicorn?No, it’s a rhino.The world is full of injustice. It’s everywhere.Do something about it.The world is full of opportunity. It’s everywhere.Do something about it.Pick a purpose and then lower your head and charge.Patience, taken too far, becomes cowardice. There is a time to shut up and do something.God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, The courage to change the things I can, And the wisdom to know the difference.”A father was unable to explain to his little girl why she couldn’t go to an amusement park. So Martin Luther King decided to do something and we became a better nation.A boy was hospitalized when a group of bullies threw him down a flight of stairs and then beat him until he blacked out. This sort of thing happened to him every day but the boy refused to see himself as a victim. He chose not to let those experiences define him. Ashlee Vance tells that story in her new book, Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future.I actually think those bullies may have been the secret to Elon’s success. When facing a risky business decision, he was less afraid than the rest of us. After all, the worst that could happen was that he might lose all his money and be embarrassed. No one was going to throw him down the stairs, right?Fantastic ideas are more common than you think.What’s rare is a person who will take action.When a friend tells you about an idea, your first impulse is to think of all the reasons why that idea might not work. You immediately look for potential problems because it’s our nature to look for hidden dangers. And we know that if we encourage our friend to take a chance and it turns out badly, we’re going to feel terrible.So we make them feel terrible instead.The next time someone tells you about their new idea, consider this for a response: give them your brightest smile and say,I’m going to give you three reasons why this is a dangerous idea and then I’m going to give you three reasons why it’s brilliant. If the brilliant parts outweigh the dangerous parts, then this could be an idea whose time has come.”Having painted yourself into a corner with your promise of three and three, you will immediately be able to think of three huge impediments and then you’ll just as easily be able to think of three reasons why the idea is truly brilliant.You just became the best friend on earth. Everyone needs a friend like you.Fantastic ideas are more common than you think.People willing to take action are rare.But most precious of all is a friend who is willing to encourage you.Will you be such a friend this week?I promise you will have the chance.Roy H. Williams

Showmanship is symbolism, the essence of pageantry and tradition: the sweep of an extended arm with an upraised palm in an expansive gesture; a deep bow with the added flourish of both arms extended to the sides, again with palms turned upward; dramatic emphasis expressed by hopping in place on the balls of your feet – timed precisely to the syllables you speak – pent-up energy that demands release.Showmanship is mesmerizing but it takes courage because it’s easy to feel you’re making a fool of yourself.Storytelling requires finesse and restraint as you work your way through a series of small reveals, waiting with the patience of a magician for the moment of the big reveal.Showmanship and storytelling don’t change reality but they do change perception.Are you beginning to understand why an ad man might be interested in these?In a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers from the California Institute of Technology and Stanford’s business school determined that the intensity of the pleasure we experience when tasting wine is linked directly to its price. “And that’s true even when, unbeknownst to the test subjects, it’s exactly the same Cabernet Sauvignon with a dramatically different price tag.”The story you tell about the wine affects how it tastes.The study wasn’t speculative; it was medical. The researchers used functional magnetic resonance imaging (FMRI) to monitor the medial orbitofrontal cortex – the pleasure center of the brain – of wine connoisseurs who tasted wines after hearing stories about them.The scientific verdict: good stories accelerate the physical pleasures generated through our senses. This should come as no surprise, really. We’ve known for decades that humans are uniquely gifted to attach complex meanings to sounds.Words. Work. Magic.Daniel Whittington’s “Tour of Scotland” – an adventure in storytelling and showmanship and single malt Scotch – has attracted so much attention that Wizard Academy is launching the world’s first curriculum to officially certify Whisk(e)y Sommeliers. In this endeavor he’ll be joined by cognoscenti Tom Fischer, the founder of BourbonBlog.com, one of the world’s most authoritative voices on corn liquor (Bourbon.)Whisk(e)y Marketing School isn’t about making whiskey; it’s about putting on a great show and telling great stories to accelerate the pleasure of customers “taking a Tour of Scotland” or “going on a Bourbon Run.” Fine restaurants worldwide will soon have tables full of people mesmerized as their Whisk(e)y Sommeliers wheel carts to their tables, open elegant wooden boxes, slip magnificent badges of office over their heads, and begin their tales of wonder.Same song, second verse:Angel SkatingTM is a new organization whose mission is to use storytelling and showmanship to popularize a little-known sport called artistic roller skating. You’ve seen figure skating in the Winter Olympics, right? Now imagine exactly that, but on roller skates. The objective of Angel Skating is to help artistic roller skating become the figure skating of the Summer Olympics.Angel Skating was born last week when Craig Arthur, the director of Wizard of Ads, Australia, was in Austin for 10 days of catching up at the home office. Wizard of Ads partners Tom Wanek, Paul Boomer and Dave Young flew in from Columbia, Cleveland and Tucson to hang out with Craig, who mentioned that his daughter, Bridget, was becoming rather good at artistic roller skating, but that the sport wasn’t very well packaged or promoted.Packaging and promoting are just different names for showmanship and storytelling.A Tour of Scotland and a comical comment from Indiana Beagle was all it took. Angel SkatingTM was born before the sun went down. An official logo, a cartoon character mascot, a series of domain names and the rules of advancement through a series of “elegance levels” were all agreed upon within 36 hours.Showmanship and storytelling – packaging and promotion – are what whiskey tasting and roller skating have in common with what you do.And now you know what we do.Roy H. Williamsand the Wizard of Ads Partners

I have a client who has a lot of marketing savvy. A few weeks ago he sent me a list of seven copy points and asked if this was our radio strategy.I spent a lot of time crafting a carefully considered response, so I thought I might share it with you. Perhaps it will trigger a realization or an insight you can use.There’s an equally good chance, however, that you’ll decide I’m wrong.Here’s the response I sent him:You’ve asked for clarity on the issue of our radio strategy and you sent along a very well-crafted chart to illustrate your perception of it. This is obviously important to you.I’m happy to help in any way I can, of course.My discomfort with the list you sent me is rooted in the following question:What is the purpose of this document? Is it meant to be a guiding document?Are we creating a standard by which ads are to be evaluated in the future?If so, my experience has been that if I agree with this list, it will lead to the inclusion of too many claims being jammed into a single piece of copy. Within a year, I would likely be hearing,This is a good ad, but you didn’t say this or this or this. We need to include those, remember? Didn’t we agree on this list of seven things that our ads should accomplish? Is there any way we can include those other three things, too?”A good ad makes a single point, powerfully. A bad ad sounds like a grocery list.The only person impressed by such an ad is the advertiser who wrote it.If this document is meant to be a list of recurrent copy-points, it is incomplete. Consequently, the adoption of this list would put us at risk of focusing too much of our airtime on too few objectives.Our strategy is to win not only the mind, but the heart as well. We need our prospective customer to feel good about us. This is very delicate and difficult and is not likely to be accomplished if we are constrained by a regimented list of intellectual copy points. My experience has been that such lists lead to the ad campaign becoming more structured and informative, but less persuasive.You’ve mentioned on a number of occasions that you believe the strongest response we’ve had was triggered by an ad I sent you that was written in a very intimate, confessional style. The effectiveness of that ad rose from the fact that it didn’t speak to the listener in the style of an advertiser speaking to a customer. It spoke in the style of a friend speaking to a friend. That ad surprised and delighted the customer. It’s hard to put surprise and delight on a checklist, but I know how important they are. Every fiber of me knows it. Thirty-seven years of attempting to persuade the public and then monitoring the results of those attempts has carved it into my soul.It’s perfectly natural for an organized person to want a document that summarizes the intellectual elements of their advertising, point by point. You have several years of experience as a CEO that has taught you the wisdom of this.My experience as an ad writer has been otherwise. This is at the root of my anxiety, I think. The hidden danger of lists is that they lead to predictability.If you continue to feel that you need a checklist, I suggest that we add the following to the top of it:Be remembered.We must be memorable. This requires us to surprise the customer in some small way in every ad. Without an element of surprise, there can be no delight.Make them like us.If we win the heart, the mind will follow. Our minds routinely create logic to justify what our hearts have already decided.Add these to your list and I’m good with it. There will be times when these two points will be the only two things I attempt to accomplish in a script.Thank you for asking for this clarity in such an elegant and respectful way.Your style of communication is one of the things I like best about you.And it’s one of the things our audience likes best about you, too.Ciao for Niao,Roy H. Williams

The genius of the human race lies in our ability to attach complex meanings to sounds.But not all of these sounds are words. There is a second, wordless language of pitch, key, tempo, contour, interval and rhythm: music is an auditory fractal, a 3-dimensional map of a chaotic system. (Chaos, in science, is not randomness but precisely the opposite. It’s a level of order and organization that’s beyond our ability to grasp and comprehend.)Whoever controls the music controls the mood of the room.When the message of that first language of sound – words – contradicts the message of the embedded second language of sound – music – our interpretation of the song will be guided by the music more often than by the words because words encoded in music are not interpreted in the same way as when they arise from silence or come piercing through an ocean of background noise.Words are interpreted in the rational, logical, sequential, deductive reasoning hemisphere of your brain – the left hemisphere* – while complex patterns of pitch, key, tempo, contour, interval and rhythm are interpreted in the pattern-recognition hemisphere of your brain, the non-judgmental right.**The right hemisphere makes no judgments, has no morals and doesn’t know the difference between fact and fiction. This is perhaps why, in the words of Voltaire, “Anything too stupid to be spoken is sung.” The right hemisphere gives us the ability to enjoy fiction books and movies we know to be untrue. The right hemisphere is why we’re happy to bellow song lyrics at the tops of our lungs without needing to understand what we’re singing.These are some of the things you’ll learn in the opening session of the communications workshop we call Magical Worlds.Daniel Whittington was a touring musician for 18 years prior to becoming vice-chancellor at Wizard Academy. After participating in the Magical Worlds workshop a couple of times he said, “Every musician on earth should take this class.” The next day he employed TRIZ principle 13 (Turn it upside-down, do it backwards,) and TRIZ principle 32 (Change the color) as he played a melancholy version of a perky, pop mega-hit from 1980, Celebration by Kool & The Gang. Then he applied a similar set of inversion principles to I Just Want to Celebrate, another big, happy-energy song from Rare Earth, circa 1971.I said, “Let’s do a whole album of those.”Daniel spent the next several months writing music, recruiting talent, and recording that album. And then he shifted into planning, coordinating and delivering the April concert we held in Tuscan Hall on the campus of Wizard Academy.The album is called Bring the Dark. You’re going to be impressed.You can download the studio version of the album and then watch the live concert video at DanielWhittington.com. Indiana Beagle is going to show a few highlights from that video in today’s rabbit hole.One of our objectives in this project was to demonstrate the attractive power of highly divergent elements brought into reconciliation through the use of third gravitating bodies. The secret, as every cognoscenti knows, is to add something that absolutely doesn’t belong, and then make it fit perfectly. WHAM! Surprise becomes delight. This is incredibly attractive to the unconscious mind but it often goes undetected by the conscious mind because when a highly divergent element fits, it feels as though it belongs.Here’s an example from the concert: You’re listening to a countrypolitan version of Staying Alive by the BeeGees when you hear the signature harmonica passage from Neil Young’s Heart of Gold and then a rap artist pops in and raps awhile and the whole thing is integrated so seamlessly that it never occurs to you that any of this is unusual in any way.How about Abba’s perky Take a Chance on Me played with drunken Bourbon Street trumpet accents and an agonized Bonnie Raitt-style guitar solo? It doesn’t sound wrong at all.How about Girl From Ipanema, the definitive Bossa Nova song, sung as a male/female call-and-response duet without a Bossa Nova rhythm? You’ll hear it and think it’s always been that way.Highly divergent elements reconciled through the use of a third gravitating body are the unwavering signature of high-interest communication. Ask any Cognoscenti of Magical Worlds.Now enjoy the album and concert video at DanielWhittington.com while we plan another fun album and an even bigger concert for next year.You’re coming, right?Roy H. Williams

A Partial Dictionary of the CognoscentiJune 8, 2015ListenAAngle – the direction from which a writer, speaker, photographer or illustrator approaches their chosen subject. Some angles are more interesting than others.Brandable Chunks – memorable phrases that become associated with a brand.Innovation Model – a proven template that allows you to generate a superior result.Business Topology – a technique used for the discovery of innovation models that have been proven, tested and refined in a business category other than your own.Defining Characteristics – distinctive triggers of identification.Chaos – a level of order and organization that exceeds the capacity of the human mind.Third Gravitating Body – a reliable disruptor of predictability that allows you to gain and hold human attention.Daguerre – an academic style of communication that is accurate, but tedious.Dick and Jane – an unintelligent style of communication that employs predictable clichés.FMI – First Mental Image; the first vivid idea presented in an ad, a speech or a presentation, or the first thing noticed in a work of art.LMI – Last Mental Image; the closing thought in an ad, a speech or a presentation; the final feeling or impression communicated by a work of art.Full Circle – when the Last Mental Image in an ad, a speech or a presentation revisits the First Mental Image. “Going Full Circle” creates an elegant sense of closure.Fractal – a kaleidoscope-like image created as the result of mapping a chaotic system.Frameline Magnetism – an effect that is created when an image is extended – in the imagination – beyond what is revealed.Frank – a style of communication noted for (1) approaching its subject from an interesting angle, (2) brevity and clarity (3) frameline magnetism, (4) a highly restrained use of adjectives. (Named after the photographer Robert Frank.)Frosting – to replace common words and phrases with less common, more colorful ones. (Named after the poet Robert Frost.)Frosted Frank – A style of writing marked by the characteristics of Frank, but with the added color and surprise of Frosting.Free the Beagle! – unleash your intuition! take a chance!Meter – a rhythm constructed from the stressed and unstressed syllables of words. Meter makes language more easily remembered by making it musical.EXAMPLE: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.”   – George Gordon, Lord Byronfrom The Destruction of SennacheribMonet – an impressionistic style of communication marked by subjective feelings and opinions rather than objective, clear facts.Neapolitan – a transitionary device that creates a longing for closure.Portal – an auditory or visual trigger that helps a reader, listener or viewer move from one feeling or state of consciousness to another feeling or state of consciousness.Put It Under Water – delete information that is already known to – or can easily be figured out by – the reader, listener or viewer. (Essentially, “putting it under water” is frameline magnetism applied to words, calling upon the imagination to fill in what was left out by the writer, speaker or actor.)Random Entry – a technique used in Chaotic Ad Writing in which a randomly chosen, high impact sentence is used as the opening sentence of an ad.Purple Coffee – red wine that is consumed before noon.Seussing – to create your own words in the manner of Dr. Seuss.Schema – a pre-existing belief system that helps humans organize and interpret their experiences. Your schema allows you to take shortcuts in interpreting information, but it can also cause you to exclude pertinent information when it doesn’t conform to your previously held beliefs.Surprising Broca – to gain attention by introducing something that is new, surprising or different.TLB – Twitchy Little Bastard; a person who is counterproductively anxious for results.Turtles All The Way Down – Extremely very incredibly excellent.Verb Avalanche – a style of writing that slaps the cheek of the imagination and jerks open the eyes of the mind by firing rocket-like verbs to explode in the darkness and brighten the horizon. You leap out of the way of a mental image plummeting toward you only to find that another is hurtling at your face. Adrenaline surging, heart pounding, knees flying, lungs gasping, you’re having a wonderful time.These are just a few of the tools the cognoscenti have at their fingertips to turn backwards into forwards and failure into success.Come to Wizard Academy. We’ll give you these tools, teach you to use them, and then watch with satisfaction as you happily work miracles.When you can work miracles, people smile when they see you.And then they give you money.Roy H. Williams

The left side of your brain wants perfect symmetry, but in the words of Francis Bacon 400 years ago,There is no excellent beauty that hath not some strangeness in the proportion.”In chaos theory, this “strangeness in the proportion” is called the strange attractor and it triggers a level of organization so vast the human mind cannot contain it. (Chaos, in science, does not mean randomness but precisely the opposite.)Perfect symmetry is predictable. Consequently, it has no style.Randomness never resolves into meaning. Consequently, it makes no statement.Beauty – meaningful style – is essentially off-balance symmetry: something is wrong, but somehow it fits.Flaws, mistakes, anomalies, gaps and disturbances are the essential elements of style.Look for a moment at the image at the top of this page. There are several things wrong with it, but each of these is unconsciously – or consciously – reconciled in your mind.These are a few of the wrong or off-balance things:1. The upper left triangle is slightly higher than the one on the right.2. The capital letter A in Academy lacks a crossbar. It also drops slightly below the line of the other letters.3. The left leg of the W in wizard is too long.4. There is a single star in the sky.But then your mind begins to see how these mistakes fit a bigger pattern.1. The negative space between the triangles forms an implied W whose left leg is slightly longer than the one on the right, a perfect echo of the W in wizard.2. The center peak of this negative space W is also the top of the letter A, whose legs extend in the imagination to a point slightly below the line on which the W sits. This echos the placement of the A in Academy.3. The missing crossbar in the letter A prompts you to see how it echos the implied A in the negative space. (If the A in Academy had a crossbar, we would need to see that crossbar as a black line running through the middle of the lower white triangle.) Consequently, we see in our minds a black W A implied by the triangles.4. In the minds of the cognoscenti of the Magical Worlds Communications Workshop, the three out-of-balance triangles immediately imply “third gravitating bodies,” our trigger for chaos. The fact that the cognoscenti will notice this immediately when other people don’t will be something of a secret handshake among them.5. The three triangles are arranged in the classic position of the three wise men (wise-ards) who followed a star to Bethlehem 2000 years ago.6. This star also recalls our hero Don Quixote who sings the anthem of Wizard Academy,This is my quest: to follow that star,no matter how hopeless, no matter how far…”– The Impossible Dream, from Man of La ManchaThe three images of Indiana Beagle aren’t part of the Wizard Academy logo. Indy is the mascot of the Monday Morning Memo and is not an official icon of the Academy. He just dressed up as Goals, Frank-sent-this and Mirth to help illustrate the “wise men” connection.If you’ve ever attended a class at Wizard Academy, you understand. The crown and the rose represent the goals you bring with you. The cowboy hat and the sword represent the marvelous things you receive from your fellow students during mealtimes, at breaks, and in the evenings after classes. The propeller beanie represents the quirky nerd science and humor that is part of every class.*I’m sorry if I have explained the obvious. It wasn’t my intention to be tedious. My goal was merely to encourage you not to be afraid of imperfections.Flaws – presented with confidence and restraint – are the essence of style.Be flawed.Have style.Roy H. WilliamsPS – But don’t take a good thing too far. In the words of our audio producer, Dave Nevland, “There’s a fine line between ‘lack of skill’ and ‘personal style.’” Competence is important. Restraint is the key.

I’ve met people who say absolute truth does not exist, that all truth is subjective and exists like beauty in the eye of the beholder.I believe those people are sadly misguided.Absolute truth absolutely exists. If you don’t believe me, just ask me again because I am absolutely certain.But we’re not talking about absolute truth today.We’re talking about his very beautiful sister, personal truth.Can you share your perceptions with someone else?Can you cause them to feel a little of what you feel?Can you make them see in their mind what you see in yours?Do you have a contagious sort of confidence?Congratulations. You are an artist, a persuader.Every artist is a salesman and every salesman is an artist.*The left hemispheres of our brains are wired for empirical, scientific, objective reality: absolute truth.The right hemispheres of our brains are sponges thirsty for impressions, symbols, metaphors, connections and patterns. These patterns can be auditory, visual or behavioral.Auditory patterns are called music.Visual patterns are called art.Behavioral patterns are called personality.The more complex the pattern, the deeper the beauty.The goal of every artist – no matter their field of art – is to give us a glimpse of personal truth, the beautiful sister of absolute truth.Personal Truth is also known as Perceptual Reality and like Don Quixote’s Dulcinea, she lives in your heart and mind. Jory MacKay calls her “referential meaning.”Embodied meaning is intrinsic—it’s inherently inside something and doesn’t rely on our emotions or experiences to have meaning. Referential meaning is dependent on the network of associations activated when we are exposed to the stimulus. In other words, we create meaning through what we think of when we see it.”A persuasive message – an advertisement – can be crafted from the absolute truth of facts or the personal truth of values and the self-image we see reflected in them.I once knew an attorney who put it this way:When the facts are on your side, argue the facts. When the truth is on your side, argue the truth. When the law is on your side, argue the law. When in trouble, when in doubt, run in circles, scream and shout.”In other words, when the facts are not on your side, appeal to self image, personal truth, subjective reality: values.Last week, Indiana Beagle asked for your opinion of six different images of himself. You could give each logo from one to five stars and add comments, if you wished. What strong opinions you have about him! Reading those comments, Indy was delighted. I’ve known Indiana Beagle for many years but I had never before seen him prance.Each of the six logos had its advocates who proclaimed it to be the obvious only choice, and each of the six had its detractors who said it was a criminal mischaracterization.Each of you sees Indy differently because each of you brings a different set of values to the party. Indy is merely a trigger. “Referential meaning is dependent on the network of associations activated when we are exposed to the stimulus. In other words, we create meaning through what we think of when we see it.”John Steinbeck said the same thing was true in storytelling.A story has as many versions as it has readers. Everyone takes what he wants or can from it and thus changes it to his measure.”Speaking to values instead of facts is one of the more complex methods of indirect targeting in ad writing. We’ll reveal all the simpler methods in August when the Wizard of Ads Partners unveils their new 1-day seminar on Indirect Targeting.It may even become a class at Wizard Academy.Interested? Shoot Andrew@WizardOfAds.com an email and he’ll keep you updated.One last thing: our plan all along was to purchase all the logos from all the artists and rotate them with every visit to MondayMorningMemo.com.Indy is exactly like you: he is much too big to be contained in a single image.Roy H. Williams

In 1738, Alexander Pope gave a dog to Frederick, Prince of Wales.Engraved on the dog’s collar were these words:“I am his Highness’ dog at Kew;Pray tell me, sir, whose dog are you?”Alexander Pope hitched his wagon to Prince Frederick, a rising star.If you’ve seen the Masterpiece Theater television series, Wolf Hall, you’ll remember a similar conversation between Thomas Cromwell and his wife, Liz, as he explains why he has chosen to work for Cardinal Wolsey:You know what they say in Italy? ‘Il principe bisogna sceglierlo… You have to pick your prince.'”Later, Cromwell says to Rafe, his right-hand man,The question is, have you picked your prince? Because that is what you do, you choose him and you know what he is. And then, when you have chosen, you say yes to him — ‘yes, that is possible, yes, that can be done.'”Anyone that has ever risen through the ranks knows these things.But this is America, where each of us wants to be his own dog, so we contrive new and different names for the princes we serve during every phase of our lives:A child’s prince is called a role model.An athlete’s prince is called a coach.An employee’s prince is called a manager.A businessperson’s prince is called a mentor.An actor’s prince is called a director.A director’s prince is called a producer.A producer’s prince is called an investor.An ad writer’s prince is called a client.There is no end to the chain of princes.Make no mistake, you have chosen a prince. In fact, you have chosen more than one.What? You still believe that you are free and independent, without alliances and the obligations that come with them? I hope for your own sake this is not true.The dog that is its ownis a strayand has no home.Each of us is stronger when we are bound to others.Dogs are known for their ability to bind themselves to others. This instinctive loyalty allows them to form powerful alliances against animals that are much faster and stronger than they.Solomon spoke of the power of such alliances in Ecclesiastes, chapter 4.Two people can accomplish more than twice as much as one; they get a better return for their labor. If one person falls, the other can reach out and help. But people who are alone when they fall are in real trouble. And on a cold night, two under the same blanket can gain warmth from each other. But how can one be warm alone? A person standing alone can be attacked and defeated, but two can stand back-to-back and conquer. Three are even better, for a triple-braided cord is not easily broken.”My friend Roy Laughlin is known for his miraculous ability to do things in business that can’t be done. Years ago, I asked him his secret.When I was a boy in elementary school, my grandfather pulled me aside one day and said, ‘Roy, the outcome of the game is determined the moment the captains pick sides. Pay attention to your playmates and you’ll always know, ‘If I can get him and him and her, we can win this thing.’ Know who you need on your team and figure out how to get them on your side. This is the secret of success. Never listen to anyone who says differently.'”In other words, you must pick your princes, the rising stars to which you will hitch your wagon.And they, in turn, will hitch their wagons to you.Roy H. Williams

Say what people expect you to say.Do what people expect you to do.They will be bored, I promise you.Predictability is the essence of cliché.Surprise is the foundation of delight. Without an element of surprise, there can be no delight.But irrelevant surprise is randomness, the essence of confusion.To gain and hold attention, you must do or say something unexpected, but relevant. This is the foundation of every art.When the surprising element – the thing that doesn’t belong – unexpectedly and miraculously and perfectly fits, surprise resolves into understanding. Delight will leap from the eyes. You’ll see it dancing at the corners of the mouth.Don’t be tedious. Be delightful.Before you read any further, I’d like you to go back to the beginning and read down to here again. When you’ve read these eight opening paragraphs three consecutive times, you’ll be ready to continue reading further.You thought you could just keep reading and not get caught? Go back and do what I told you.Sheesh.Magicians call it misdirection – sleight of hand – but what they’re really doing is surprising you again and again and each time they do, it’s delightful.The magician that bores you is the one whose trick is predictable.A comedian is no different, really. The punch line you don’t see coming – but that fits perfectly when delivered – makes you gasp for breath laughing and feel the lightheaded joy of youth.When the punch line is predictable, we moan.I learned all this from Robert Frost.We never met.He died when I was 5 years old, but Robert left me a lot of poems to read and in each one he took me to a place I didn’t see coming. When Paul Harvey told me the rest of the story it deepened my skill to a more frightening level.Robert and Paul taught me how to move from surprise to understanding to delight.Surprise that resolves into understanding always looks like magic.If you can insert surprise and delight into a message for a business, you are a Wizard of Ads.Can you?You can?Excellent. Now all you need to do is practice each day and build a reputation and soon you’ll be earning more than a million dollars a year.I’m not exaggerating or trying to be colorful. Later this morning – at 11AM Central Time to be exact – I’m going to explain How to Make a Ton of Money in Advertising in 10 Not-Easy Steps during the opening few minutes of my monthly webcast. (Monday, May 11, 2015)You trust me to help you each week without trying to get in your pocket. That’s why you give me these few minutes. So I’m going to ask Sean Taylor to video the opening section of today’s webcast and post it online for you so that you can view it for free. If you’d like to see me explain those 10 Not-Easy Steps, just send your email address to my Wizard of Ads partner Andrew@WizardOfAds.com and he’ll send you a link to the video as soon as we have it posted.If – after you watch the video – you think you might have what it takes to become a Wizard of Ads partner, just let Andrew know and we’ll set aside a day to talk with you about it in Austin.I don’t care that you didn’t study advertising in college. I didn’t either. In fact, I didn’t even go.But people don’t seem to care about that when you’re helping them make a lot of money.Email Andrew.Let’s start this thing up.Roy H. Williams

Throughout the presidency of her husband, Martha Washington hosted a weekly reception each Friday evening for anyone who would like to attend. At these gatherings, men and women from the local community would mingle with Members of Congress and visiting dignitaries at the presidential mansion where they would enjoy refreshments and talk.Martha didn’t do this because she loved to entertain. She did it to encourage people, brighten people, connect people.One hundred years later, Stéphane Mallarmé would open his modest home each Tuesday night to the literary and artistic misfits of Paris. Among the writers who gathered there each week were Marcel Proust, Oscar Wilde, William Butler Yeats, André Gide, Paul Valéry, Paul Verlaine and Rainer Maria Rilke.What conversations they had! Arthur Schopenhauer was likely talking about these Tuesday nights when he wrote, “The business of the novelist is not to relate great events, but to make small ones interesting.”Debussy named Stéphane Mallarmé as his inspiration for The Afternoon of a Faun and Ravel wrote a mystical piece of music, Trois poèmes de Stéphane Mallarmé dedicated to the memory of his Tuesday night host. The visual artists who mingled with those writers and musicians on Tuesday nights were Manet, Degas, Gaugin, Whistler, Renoir, Edvard Munch and Auguste Rodin. The combined works of these artists today are worth – quite literally – many billions of dollars.These men did not get together because they were exceptional.They became exceptional because they got together.*In the spirit of Martha Washington and Stéphane Mallarmé, Wizard Academy launched just such a weekly gathering one year ago.You should start one, too.If ever you’re in Austin on a Friday afternoon, we gather at 4PM at the Toad and Ostrich, the private pub on the campus of Wizard Academy. Just climb the tower fire escape to the quarterdeck and go through the door on your left.We go home to our families at 5:30.These are the rules of our gathering:If you talk about business or politics, we throw you out.Although the topic of conversation may wander like a butterfly in springtime, we have a single conversation with everyone participating. No side conversations, please.Daniel Whittington is our host at the Toad and Ostrich, our Martha Washington, our Stéphane Mallarmé. While you’re here, you might even learn why we call him “Brittington.”Be prepared to laugh.Be prepared to sing.Be prepared to live.Do this in your town, too.Roy H. Williams