Wizard of Ads Monday Morning Memo

Is it wiseto protect the ones we lovefrom the hardshipsthat taught us all we know?Hardship is the undisputed School of the Masters, but very few students seek admission.Education begins with memorization. Having learned all the theories, steps and rules, we parry and thrust against the light in a kind of frantic swordplay with the shadows of possibilities. This is when we learn that steps and rules are only a weak and sad beginning. We still have a lot to learn.Memorization was our first lesson.Improvisation is the second.Choices and Consequences are the lessons that never quit teaching.Every industry, craft, trade and profession has its own traditional wisdom that will hide you safe, out of trouble, by keeping you inside the box.If you’re going to start thinking “outside the box,” you’re going to have to ignore the unwritten rules of traditional wisdom. Do this and you’ll immediately be told that you’re “not doing it right.” And sadly, the new thing you’re attempting to do probably won’t work the way you had hoped.You won’t have a victory but you will have an education.So you’ll try something else that doesn’t work out.Now you’re a screw-up.Most people would crawl back inside the box and quit trying.But not you.You try again. Fail again.Now you’re a loser, a nonconformist, a problem child, and possibly unemployed.This, mi amigo, is what they call hardship.Try again. Limited success.Now you’re a tinkerer who won’t leave well-enough alone.Try again. Limited improvement.No one calls you anything now because no one is paying attention.Try again. Major breakthrough.Now you’re an innovator and everyone wants to swim in your pool.AGeorge Washington was a loyal British subject who decided the king was wrong.Thomas Jefferson envisioned a form of government that Winston Churchill – on the floor of the House of Commons* – would later call “the worst form of government ever created, except for all the others.”Abraham Lincoln violated millennia of traditional wisdom when he won the war but refused the victor’s spoils, saying instead, “With malice toward none, with charity for all… let us bind up the nation’s wounds…” (2nd inaugural address.)But perhaps Teddy Roosevelt said it best. Speaking of the choices and consequences we face daily as we improvise our way through life, he said, “Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.”Wizard Academy is a nonprofit educational organization, a school for the imaginative, the courageous and the ambitious.Finally! After 12 years of false starts, mistakes and “almost rights,”we have a way to explain this place. THANK YOU to Jeffrey Eisenberg and Jeff Sexton, who accepted this challenge 8 months ago and never turned loose of the tail of that dragon.“Wizard Academy: a school for the imaginative, the courageous and the ambitious.” This tells the world who we are and who we are not.“If you have no imagination, please stay at home. If you lack courage, this is not the place for you. If you have no dream that keeps you awake, go back to bed with our blessings. We have work to do.”It took us 12 years to figure out how to explain who we areand we’re the ones that are supposed to know what we’re doing.You’re not a screw-up. You’re an innovator on the edge of a breakthrough. Trust us. We know. We’re very familiar with the edge.And the view from here is magnificent.Join us.Roy H. Williams* Nov. 11, 1947 

I think there should be something in science called the ‘reindeer effect.’ I don’t know what it would be, but I think it’d be good to hear someone say, ‘Gentlemen, what we have here is a terrifying example of the reindeer effect.’– Jack HandeyThe Reindeer Effect isn’t real.AThe Ikea Effect, however, is real enough to be the subject of a story in Harvard Business Review. The essence of it is this: We don’t put effort into things because we love them. We love them because we put effort into them.1. We find purpose and see value in the work of our hands.2. We see a reflection of ourselves in the things we create.  The Ikea Effect was named for that highly successful, international retailer known for selling flat-pack furniture that must be tediously assembled by the purchaser. Persons who assemble this furniture tend to place a much higher value on the finished product than persons who had no involvement in its construction.The authorship of virtually every book in the Bible is debated by scholars. I don’t want to put my dog in that fight, so let me say for the record that I choose to believe Solomon wrote the book of Ecclesiastes toward the end of his life approximately 3,000 years ago. Solomon enjoyed the freedom to follow his passions and pursue his dreams. Ecclesiastes is his diary of that journey. In it, Solomon shares what he learned on that fateful day he found the final answer. Here’s an often-quoted passage from chapter 3:There is a time for everything,and a season for every activity under the heavens:a time to be born and a time to die,a time to plant and a time to uproot,a time to kill and a time to heal,a time to tear down and a time to build,a time to weep and a time to laugh,a time to mourn and a time to dance,a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing,a time to search and a time to give up,a time to keep and a time to throw away,a time to tear and a time to mend,a time to be silent and a time to speak,a time to love and a time to hate,a time for war and a time for peace.What do workers gain from their toil? I have seen the burden God has laid on the human race. He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end. I know that there is nothing better for people than to be happy and to do good while they live. That each of them may eat and drink, and find satisfaction in all their toil — this is the gift of God.That last bit is usually left out when people put this quote on posters and calendars and greeting cards. Solomon’s assertion that the true secret of happiness is to find satisfaction in our toil – our efforts – the work of our hands – is just too plebeian an answer for ambitious people who are driven to succeed. But the Ikea Effect – and the Harvard Business Review – seem to confirm Solomon’s assertion. Even so, most of us will continue to overvalue that glimmering destination on the horizon – “Success” – never quite realizing that any value it has in the end will be produced by memories of the journey that took us there. Now let’s think for a moment about this idea that we love things because we put energy into them. When a thing becomes the object of concentrated hope and focused effort, when we inject it with our own life-force and energy, it becomes very precious to us. Actions trigger feelings. We usually wait to fall in love with something before throwing ourselves into it. A subject in school, a nonprofit organization, a hobby, a sport, a business. But the Ikea Effect tells us that throwing ourselves into it is the surest way of falling in love with it. The same is true of relationships.When I was a very young man, Phil Johnson, a wise-ard, told Pennie and I that if we ever felt we were “falling out of love,” to just start doing the things we would do for each other – to start taking the actions we would take – if we were passionately, madly in love. Feelings follow actions. Phil was about 65 back then and that was 30 years ago. We plan to visit Phil and Barbara when we travel back to Oklahoma in a few months. I mentioned Ray Bard last week. I said he was one of the people who speaks into my life. He doesn’t mean to. In fact, he’s not even aware that he’s doing it. Phil Johnson is another of those people for me. Don Kuhl is another. I hope you have people, too. People who make intelligent and useful comments. People who open your eyes to things you need to know. People who speak into your life.Open your ears to wisdom.Enjoy the work of your hands.Fling yourself headlong into things. That’s how love is born. Roy H. Williams 

A brief summary of this episodeTo See a Better OutcomeThings depend on how you look at them.Through what lenses do you examine possibilities?The first 2 lenses are intellect and emotion.Sometimes you use one, sometimes the other. This is normal.Intellect employs hard facts and cold logic.Emotion relies on soft intuition and warm connections.Will the first impression be made in the head or in the heart?  In all your communications and attempts at persuasion – especially in your advertising – be careful to make a deep, dual impression; one track in the head and another in the heart.But what happens after that first impression has been made? Are there other, smaller lenses that read the second, third, and fourth impressions?Ray Bard is a quiet genius who speaks into my life. I walk away from each encounter a richer soul.Ray recently told me that a careful examination of all the biggest nonfiction books of the past 50 years revealed 4 common characteristics. Ray is like that. He sees patterns that others miss and solves riddles that few have ever considered.Unless you’re a nonfiction author, you don’t really care what makes a nonfiction book successful, do you? But what if I told you these same 4 characteristics are the keys to successful advertising? I saw that. Your ears perked up like a German Shepherd.Communication, to be highly successful, must have:1. A Big IdeaConceptInsightInformation2. Nuts & BoltsHow ToStep-by-StepInstructionsExamples3. EntertainmentWriting styleAnecdotesAdventureSurprise4. HopeVisualized HappinessPromiseInspiration(1.) The Big Idea and (2.) Nuts and Bolts,are more about the writer than the reader. Yet these are the only things every writer of nonfiction feels a need to share. And now you know why we churn out more than one million dull new books each year and why most of our advertising is gruel.Dull communications are about the speaker, the author, the product, the advertiser. Lots of examples supporting a big idea are merely white noise when there’s no entertainment and no hope; the sound of traffic in a too-busy world.Successful nonfiction – including highly effective advertising – is about the reader, the listener, the viewer, the customer. These beloved messages deliver(3.) Entertainment and (4.) Hope.Ray Bard shared with you and me his Big Idea. We can use it to lift the effectiveness of our advertising to new heights. This should give you Hope. But if you want 2 days of Nuts and Bolts examples and Entertainment beyond compare, arrange your schedule to be at Wizard Academy April 10-11 to learn How to Write for Radio and the Internet, the highly heralded class of Christopher J. Maddock and Jeff Sexton.I plan to add a few modest examples and I’m working to get the elusive Ray Bard to make an appearance and share additional wise-ard insights with you, though I can’t yet promise he’ll be there.But I do have Hope.Roy H. Williams 

Nothing sounds appealing.Have you ever had that feeling? You’re sort of hungry, but nothing sounds good. You want to have fun, but nothing sounds fun. So you drive to the bookstore but none of the books – not a single one of them – whispers for you to carry it to the cashier.You go home and sit. The clock ticks.You keep sitting. The clock keeps ticking.You realize the clock is going to win.I hate that feeling. You hate that feeling. Neither of us wants it. So why do we have it?Consider with me the word aimless. It refers to a thing that has not been aimed. This would seem to indicate that it might be aimed, can be aimed, should be aimed.Is an aimless person one who is not being aimed?Now consider the word pointless.It refers to a thing that has no point.Physically, such a thing would be dull.Sort of how I’m feeling right now.The opposite of pointless and aimless would be “sharply pointed and directly aimed.” Do you see in those words an arrow aimed at a target by an archer? There is no dullness in that picture. Notice the fingers on the string, the hand pulled to the cheek, the sweating bicep, the zeroed eye. It requires energy to aim an arrow.But at what shall we aim?Good news: It really doesn’t matter since any nearby target can be hit.The sure-fire cure for the blues is to aim pointed energy at something. The object of your aim is of no importance. All that matters is that you can physically see that your target was hit.I will now stand up and clean my office. I don’t relish the idea. I’m really not in the mood. So who is going to make me do this?I am.I’m putting away my laptop now. It’s 7:09AM.You won’t hear from me again until I’m done.Okay, it’s 8:31AM. I’m not done but I made a lot of progess. I found my favorite, dark red baseball cap under a pile of stuff. Martin Rapaport gave this cap to me. I quit wearing it last summer when it got sweat-stained and salty dust collected where the crown meets the brim. Not a good look. I spent 25 minutes hand-scrubbing the cap. When it dries I’ll see if it’s wearable again.Unimportant? Yes.Satisfying anyway? Absolutely.Okay, back to work.It’s 8:42AM and the clock can no longer be heard. Back again. But now it’s the next morning: 3:27AM. Pennie came into my office while I was cleaning yesterday and suggested that we take my pickup truck to our son and daughter-in-law’s house and load up a bunch of stuff from their garage and haul it to a rented storage facility. They’re trying to get their house ready to sell. The Princess and I spent the day making 3 trips to the storage facility, loading and unloading, loading and unloading, loading and unloading. We made a huge difference in that garage.My office remains a mess but I feel great.Surefire Cure for the Blues: Aim pointed energy at a nearby target. Fix something broken. Create a visible change. Make a difference.Want to kick it to an even higher gear? Aim your attention away from yourself. Do a good thing for someone else. Good feelings follow good actions.Someone a long time ago said that it makes us happier to give than to receive. Give it a shot. See if it’s true.It worked for me.Roy H. Williams

Rambling Thoughts, Spoken Plainly,Certain to Irritate Someone, SomewhereA mirage is not a hallucination, but a misinterpretation.We see the sky reflected from the ground and we assume it to be water. But it isn’t. That reflection is caused by light passing through cold air that sits on a thin layer of hot air, heated by sun-soaked sand.1. FaceBook, for business, is a mirage.Can it successfully gather a crowd to hear a band perform at a bar? Absolutely. Social media, social event. Can it successfully be used by a physically-existing retail or service business as a substitute for mass media? No. It cannot. A physically-existing business is one that lives in the land of sunlight. A purely online business, by contrast, lives in the light of the plasma screen. Check into those FaceBook success stories and you’ll find them all to be businesses that sprang into existence after 2003. I defy you to find a physically-existing business who enjoyed success prior to 2003 that is now reducing its mass media budget because it has found FaceBook to be a more effective use of ad dollars. You will find no such example. I’ve been looking for 3 long years.When you see the power of FaceBook to connect people together, you are facing an indisputable fact. When you assume it’s “the next big thing” for business, you are seeing a mirage, an illusion, a reflection caused by hot air.Google is our phone book, our encyclopedia, our source of ongoing news. Amazon is our bookstore and our mail-order catalog. FaceBook is a party line, a telephone line shared by a large group of people allowing each to listen-in on the conversations of the others.2. Google’s own data makes it clear: pay-per-click works extremely well for physically-existing businesses that have already built themselves a name. Pay-per-click performs poorly for businesses that aren’t already well known. If the name of your business is a household word in your town, consider investing in local pay-per-click. But if you’re still trying to build your name, put all your eggs into a single mass-media basket and then lift that basket to the sky. The biggest mistake you can make is to spread your ad dollars around, thinking you should “cover all your bases.” You don’t have the money for that. Have courage. Get focused. Talk loud and draw a crowd.A human being drinks about 180 gallons of liquid per year. This number is essentially carved in stone. When we drink more coffee or wine or expensive beer, we are drinking less of something else. This is a problem for Coke and Pepsi and Budweiser.A human being consumes precisely 24 hours per day. This number, too, is carved in stone. When we spend time online or playing video games, we are spending less time doing something else. This is a problem for television and radio and the reading of books.3. There is no “next big thing” on the media horizon. I see only a teeming host of small and medium things. Here’s one of the best of the medium things.Get an iPhone 5. Use it to collect video of customers giving you real-world, real-time testimonials “in the moment.” Post these testimonials on YouTube and embed them on your website. It’s free. You don’t even need to know what you’re doing. Professional video editors are plentiful and affordable in the cloud. One million seconds is 12 days. One billion seconds is 32 years. One trillion seconds is 31,688 years. The world watched 1.46 trillion complete YouTube views in 2012 and that number is climbing.Forget Facebook. The opportunity is on YouTube.4. Two of my favorite people won the Superbowl. Paul Harvey spoke to the Future Farmers of America in 1978 and a two-minute clip from that speech rocked the nation during the 2013 Superbowl. When Secret Formulas of the Wizard of Ads became a New York Times bestseller and was named by the Wall Street Journal as the #1 Business Book in America, my pride in those moments was only a pale reflection of the glow I felt when Paul Harvey said my name on the radio when he quoted something I’d written for Radio Ink magazine.Yes, I know I’ve told you that before. I just never get tired of saying it.The other big winner was the “Joe Montana stain” washed out of a man’s football jersey by his wife with the help of Tide. Cognoscenti Mark Huffman, resident genius at Procter & Gamble, was the executive producer of that ad. Mark made the first of many visits to Wizard Academy back in 2001. Mark brings magic with him each time he comes. If you have the freedom, no, even if you don’t have the freedom, shift heaven and earth so that you can join Mark Huffman at Wizard Academy on March 14 and 15. Mark will be teaching, for the first time in his life, with his twin brother, Gene, a famous thinker whom Mark describes with glowing eyes as “a ringmaster in a circus.” This class will be an expanded version of Mark’s class, Measurement and the Mind, (which – to oversimplify it – explains what can and cannot be measured, and how to use your measurements to make specific improvements.) This new class will explore 3 different types of thinking in business: Analytical Thinking, Intuitive Thinking, and Design Thinking.It will cost you to be there. But it will cost you far more not to be there. Read the course description. Mark and Gene Huffman are no mirage. They are true and real, water in the desert.I will absolutely, positively, unequivocally be there.Rooms are currently available in Engelbrecht House for the first 12 people who sign up. Mark and Gene will occupy the remaining 2 rooms. Wow. Wow. Wow. What’s it worth to hang out for 2 days and 3 nights, learning from guys who have detailed knowledge of the information contained in the world’s largest, privately-held repository of advertising experiments and results? Wow.Roy H. Williams 

Wizard Academy exists to educate, equip and encourage small business owners, little people with dreams who face giant corporations with big bank accounts. Like the windmills of Quixote, these giants are often unaware and unfeeling of their challengers.Don Quixote was an average man, distinguished only by his beautiful dream. He called this creation of his mind, “My lady, Dulcinea.” She was his Helen of Troy, the Galatea of his Pygmalion, the perfect girl-next-door. All that Quixote accomplished, everything he endured was in Dulcinea’s name and for her honor. (She was his Jungian anima; that perfect woman who exists in the mind of every man. Likewise, the animus is Jung’s name for the “real man” that exists in the mind of every woman.)Quixote’s Dulcinea was, in reality, a common village girl named Aldonza Lorenzo and she was completely unaware that Quixote existed. But no matter. A dream is a dream.Small business people are driven by beautiful dreams of common things: a better school for the kids, a house in a nicer neighborhood, a car, a boat, travel to exotic places filled with natives who, strangely, are also dreaming of escape. But no matter. A dream is a dream.Quixote lived in a world populated by characters and monsters of his own making. So do we all.An immortal comic strip featuring an adventurous 6-year old boy with a toy tiger and a boundless imagination: Calvin is Quixote and Hobbes, the tiger, is Sancho Panza. In one of my favorite episodes, Calvin says,“C’mon, let’s go try to find a big poisonous snake!”?Hobbes asks, “What will we do if we see one?”?Calvin replies, “Are you kidding? We’ll scare ourselves silly and run around in circles, screaming like a bunch of loons!”Hobbes sighs, “I look forward to when we’re old enough to get our morning jolt from coffee.”Peering through the grass, Calvin replies, “Ahh, I’ll bet that wears off quicker.”Are any of us older than 6?I am, by career choice, an ad man, and storytelling is at the heart of good advertising. Did you know that every literary device, every storytelling tool ever crafted, made its debut in 1605 in Miguel de Cervantes’ Don Quixote de La Mancha, the first novel ever written?It is impossible for a storyteller to detach himself completely from Quixote. But this mythical man who jousted with windmills is not the only icon of our little school.Wizard Academy takes its name from a group of guys we meet in the second chapter of Matthew, the first book in the Christian new testament. These “wise-ards” see a star in the sky, attach special significance to it, and set off in the darkness to discover where it might lead them. Remember that star in the darkness as you consider these lyrics written by Joe Darion for the wildly successful Broadway musical, Man of La Mancha:To dream the impossible dream,to fight the unbeatable foe,to bear with unbearable sorrow,to run where the brave dare not go.To right the unrightable wrong,to love pure and chaste from afar,to try when your arms are too weary,to reach the unreachable star.This is my quest,to follow that star –no matter how hopeless,no matter how far.To fight for the rightwithout question or pause,to be willing to march into hellfor a heavenly cause.And I know if I’ll only be trueto this glorious questthat my heart will be peaceful and calmwhen I’m laid to my rest.And the world will be better for this:that one man scorned and covered with scarsstill strove with his last ounce of courageto reach the unreachable stars!“If your life’s work can be accomplished in your lifetime,you’re not thinking big enough.” – Wes JacksonThe rotation of the earth causes every star to move slowly across the sky at night except for one lonely star that sits above the North Pole and another that sits above the South. Perfectly aligned with the earth’s extended axis, Polaris and the Southern Cross remain forever fixed, motionless and constant, guiding lights to all the world.Stand on the Laughlin stone* after dark at Wizard Academy and mark the hilt of the sword that rises from the top of the tower. That point of light at the hilt’s crown is Polaris. You and I call it the North Star but Quixote would call it Dulcinea, an impossible dream around which the whole world revolves.Mike Metzger once told me that we meet the same 4 people again and again on the ocean of life.“Drifters just go with the flow,” he said, “pushed this way and that by the wind and waves of circumstances. They look around and say, ‘Whatever. It’s all good.’ Surfers ride the waves, always looking for the next big thing. Drowners stay in the center of a storm. Rescue them and they’ll find another crisis and cry, ‘Help me, save me, I don’t know what I’m going to do.’ But Sailors counteract the winds and waves of circumstance by rigging sails and twisting rudders. But the sailor cannot navigate without an immovable object, a fixed point, a non-negotiable that is unaffected by circumstances. Without this guiding light there is nothing for us on life’s ocean but to drift, surf, or drown.”I don’t want to speak harshly or be overly dramatic, but if you have nothing for which you would be willing to suffer, you have little for which to live.Each of us needs a beautiful dream, a guiding light, an unreachable star.May Dulcinea shine foreverin the hearts and minds of all mankind.And I pray that your own dream will shine so consumingly brightthat you cannot look away.Roy H. Williams

A rich knowledge of history is better than creativity.Let me qualify that. A rich knowledge of history is better than creativity if your goal is to make money.The most profitable form of creativity is to repurpose the proven.Do you want to put together a group of colors that create a powerful effect? Maybe for a website or a sign or a brochure or a living room?Common sense will tell you to hire an expert. That expert will ask you to describe the feelings you want the color scheme to conjure and then he or she will aim all their education, talent and experience toward doing what has already been done by minds far greater than their own.Yes, common sense would tell you to hire a talented expert. But common sense is merely the name we give the collection of prejudices we acquire before the age of eighteen. (If you feel you’ve heard that statement before, it’s because Albert Einstein famously said it in the 1952 book, Mathematics, Queen and Servant of the Sciences.)Common sense is overrated.An enlightened soul who has escaped the boundaries of common sense will quietly inquire of the giants whose footprints went deep into the earth, those giants whose fingerprints can be found on the hearts of billions of people they have touched.Why pay a lightweight for advice when you can consult Gustav Klimt, Pierre-Auguste Renoir and Vincent van Gogh for free?(1.) Go online and select a series of world-famous paintings whose color palettes have the mojo you seek. (Mojo, by the way, is just the name we give to high-voltage emotional juju. Einstein didn’t say this, but I’m pretty sure it’s true, anyway.)(2.) Download only the paintings of artists who rocked the world.(3.) Import those paintings into Photoshop and sample each of the four or five principal colors. Click a couple of buttons to reveal the precise CMYK formulation of each. BAM! Trust me, those colors will work fabulously well together.No, don’t trust me. Trust the giants.Lee Iacocca was chosen as one of Ford Motor Company’s ten “Whiz Kids” in 1946. But every time young Lee would go to his boss with a suggestion, his boss would say, “Show me where it has worked.”Your first impression of this man is that he was a follower, a lemming, a conformist with no courage or imagination, right? But Iacocca credits that boss as being the man responsible for all his later successes. Iacocca learned from him a pivotal lesson: if an idea is truly brilliant, you’ll find examples of its successful implementation scattered throughout history.The road to bankruptcy court is flanked on both sides by bright-eyed “creative people” dripping with enthusiasm. Ask any one of them for directions. They’ll make sure you get there.The secret of guaranteed success is to import a tested and reliable methodology into a business category where it has never been used.Repurpose the proven.They’ll call you a brilliant creative innovator. You might even be able to patent your breakthrough.But you and I know the truth. You’re merely an insightful historian.Roy H. Williams

We have, for the most part, the feelings we choose to have.Please don’t be angry with me if you prefer to be tragic. I do not deny you this choice. I deny only that you have no escape.Our feelings in the first moment are triggered by our circumstances. Happy news. Sad news. News that makes us angry. But in the second moment, and the third, our feelings are the produce of our chosen perspective.What angle of view do you choose when you examine the day that lies ahead of you and all the days that lie behind? What is your perspective? Where do you aim your eyes? What produce do you grow in the soil of your imagination and the sunshine of your life?Jeanne Hébuterne was a 19 year-old art student in 1917 who fell deeply in love with a dashing Italian artist named Amedeo Modigliani. A year later, their daughter was born out of wedlock and the Hébuterne family was horrified. When that little girl was 2, Modigliani died. The next day Jeanne Hébuterne threw herself out a fifth-story window. She was only 22 years old.Modigliani’s sister adopted the little girl and raised her as her own.The girl inherited no art. She died in 1984.What do you suppose the little girl felt as she was growing up? Did she say,“My father was an alcoholic, drug-addicted loon who refused to marry my mother when she became pregnant and my mother did not love me enough to raise me. She killed herself the day after my father died.”Persons who would choose this perspective, and the feelings that accompany it, always say they are being “honest and realistic.”But is that really true?Would this perspective be any less honest or realistic?“My father was an artist whose paintings of my mother sell for many tens of millions of dollars. My mother was so deeply in love that she literally could not live without him. I am the product of that love.”I do not know what the little girl chose to think, and feel, and believe.I know only that she had a choice.As do you.Roy H. Williams

Use half as many words and they’ll hit twice as hard.Every writer knows it.Salespeople need to learn it.A few weeks ago I invested a day of training in the telephone staff of a client of mine and doubled their close rate as a result.“You’re working way too hard at it,” I said. “These people are calling you, remember? They’re calling you because they believe your company can solve their problem. In your mind, you’re being enthusiastic. But you’re coming across as anxious and nervous and defensive and combative. You’re not talking these callers into buying from you, you’re talking them out of it.”Selling is a transfer of confidence. The seller must transfer his or her confidence in the product to the buyer. When you babble, you don’t sound confident.When you act like the customer has asked the wrong question, you’re basically telling them that they’ve hit you where you’re weak.Always answer questions AS ASKED. This means that you should focus your energies on providing the simplest answer in the fewest words. If your customer wants to know more, they’ll ask you a follow-up question.Pennie and I know a woman with a 13 year-old son who recently said to her, “Mom, what is cunnilingus?”With no hesitation whatsoever, she answered, “That’s when a woman gives sexual pleasure to another woman.”He shrugged and said, “Oh,” and the conversation was over.Had our friend raised an eyebrow, acted surprised, gotten flustered, or asked, “Where did you hear that word?” the whole thing could have escalated into something it didn’t need to become.Our friend is a brilliant woman who gave a simple answer to an innocent question. She didn’t read anything into it. She is, in my opinion, an example of the perfect salesperson for 2013.When you provide simple and straightforward answers to your customer’s questions, they feel that you’re there for them. But when they provide ears for your rambling monologues, they begin to feel they’re there for you.Be there for your customer. Don’t make them be there for you.I was going to write a book about this, but then I found it has already been written. Dan Pink is a brilliant researcher as well as an insightful and entertaining writer. I haven’t yet read his newest book, To Sell is Human, but I did read the transcript of an interview he gave NPR.“We have this idea that extroverts are better salespeople. As a result, extroverts are more likely to enter sales; extroverts are more likely to get promoted in sales jobs. But if you look at the correlation between extroversion and actual sales performance — that is, how many times the cash register actually rings — the correlation’s almost zero. It’s really quite remarkable.“Let’s think about a spectrum on a scale from 1 to 7, where 1 is extremely introverted, 7 is extremely extroverted: The 6s and 7s — the people who get hired, the gregarious, backslapping types of the stereotype — they’re not very good. OK, now, why? … They’re just spending too much time talking. … They don’t know when to shut up. They don’t listen very well; they’re not attuned to the other person; they sometimes can overwhelm people.”The art of selling has changed more in the past ten years than in the previous hundred.Ten years ago, we had to rely on the seller to provide expert information. Today we’re just a few clicks away from anything we want to know.Salespeople are certainly necessary, but the roles they play have changed dramatically.Next week I’ll be teaching a 2-day workshop at Wizard Academy, “How to Advertise in a Noisy World.” I could just as easily have called it, “How to Sell in 2013.”If you can’t come to Austin for the workshop, you should at least buy Dan Pink’s new book. Based on the interview he gave NPR, I’m betting it’s really good.Ciao for Niao,Roy H. Williams

But at Least You're in the Parade"When your friend says something interesting, write it down. Better yet, post it online and give your friend eternal life.I was whining to Rich Mann over a plate of sushi one day when he reminded me to shut up and be happy. Rich didn’t even look up when he said it. He just mumbled, ‘You may be shoveling horse manure but at least you’re in the parade,’ while trying to decide whether to chopstick a slice of tuna or a piece of spider roll. But his words fell on me like Robert Frost’s *Dust of Snow. I smiled, pulled a receipt from my wallet, scribbled Rich’s statement on it, then posted it in the random quotes database at MondayMorningMemo.com.Rich’s words reminded me of something Tom Grimes taught me about tribes. “Every tribe has a hierarchy,” he said.“Give me an example.”“A football team has a trainer who bandages the players. And if you’re the third-string quarterback who never gets put into the game, you can still look at the trainer and say to yourself, ‘Well at least I’m not THAT guy.’ But even THAT guy – the lowest ranked member of the tribe – gets to watch the games for free from the best seat in stadium and chat with the players in the locker room. Never forget, THAT guy is still part of the team.”“You may be shoveling horse manure, but at least you’re in the parade.”What horse manure have you been shoveling in this most wonderful of all parades?“When I hear somebody sigh that life is hard, I am always tempted to ask, ‘Compared to what?'” – Sydney J. HarrisElmer Zubiate (Zoo-be-AH-tay) grew up embarrassed that his name was Elmer. After losing everything he owned in 2005, Elmer fought like a tiger to start a little HVAC business in San Antonio. Last year he decided to make the most of the whole Elmer thing. This is what he put on the radio:There’s Elmer Fudd, Elmer’s Glue, and ME, Elmer Zubiate of Elmer’s One-Hour Air Conditioning and Heating. We’ll be there within one hour of the time we promised you or whatever you need is free. No charge. There’s NO WAY you’re going to wait for US all day. Great prices. Fabulous service. Elmer’s One-Hour.Dial two one oh, thirty-three Elmer.[JINGLE]Two one oh, thirty-three ElmerLast year, One-Hour Elmer did $3.8 million and is trending toward $6 million in 2013. We have every expectation that Elmer will bag $12 million in 2015.I have another friend – and I promise I’m not making this up – who feels the great tragedy of his life was that he inherited 31 million dollars. The way he tells it, he’s never really recovered from that horrible day. He used to moan about it until I finally said, “Shut up, you crybaby. Maybe we should take part of that cash and buy you a spine. And then maybe we can hire an old woman to knit you a pair of balls.”Strangely, I think he still likes me.You want to hear something even stranger than that? I actually kind of agree with him: it would be truly horrible to wake up one day and learn that nothing in life required your effort anymore; all you had to do is point and it would be handed to you.It is good to be Elmer. It is good to be in the parade.Roy H. Williams