FACT: We live in an over-communicated society.

This is why we have learned how to quickly filter out messages that do not interest us.

FACT: We will happily spend several hours binge-watching shows that appeal to us.

Where’s your theory about a short attention span now?

If you want to get people’s attention and hold that attention, talk to them about things they already care about.

I wrote an ad this morning for a jewelry store. This is how the ad begins:

RICK: Sicily is the island at the toe of the boot of Italy,

SARAH: and the town of Catania is situated on the seashore, staring at the toe of that boot.

MONICA: That’s where Jay, one of our owners, traveled to meet Italy’s most exciting new jewelry designer.

RICK: Tell us about it, Jay.

JAY: When I met Francesco and saw what he was working on, I almost hyperventilated.

Those 5 lines do not sound like the typical jewelry store ad.

But I’ll bet you’d like to hear the rest of it.

FACT: Ads rarely work for products that people don’t want. The ad writers and the media will always get the blame, but the real mistake is made when business owners convince themselves that advertising can sell things that no one wants.

Advertising cannot, in fact, do that.

I recently spoke to a friend who sent out 20,000 postcards that failed to get a response. This led him to conclude that “direct mail doesn’t work.”

When he told me what was featured on those 20,000 postcards, I told my friend the truth. “Your experiment proved only that a weak offer gets weak results. Direct mail didn’t fail. Your offer did.”

Direct Response – immediate result advertising – can be measured with ROAS (Return On Ad Spend.) Pay-per-click is perhaps the most common type of direct response advertising, but direct response offers are routinely made using every type of media. If you plan to introduce, explain, and sell a product or service to a customer with whom you have no previous relationship, you are rolling the dice of direct response. You can always measure the effectiveness of direct response ads with ROAS.

Direct Response is a sport for surfers who like to ride the wave of a trend. It is a wild and crazy rollercoaster ride of feast-and-famine. If you like excitement, you should definitely do it. But be aware that the most successful direct response marketers are spending 25% to 35% percent of top line revenues on advertising. You need at least a 20x markup to play that game.

I prefer sowing and reaping. Seedtime and harvest.

Brand Building creates a long-term bond with the customer. The goal of brand building is to make your name the one that customers think of immediately – and feel the best about – when they finally need what you sell. Your Return on Ad Spend –ROAS – will look terrible when you first begin, but it will get better and better as you build a relationship with the public. In the long run, nothing can touch brand building. It is always the most cost-effective way to invest your ad budget if you have patience, confidence, and a good ad writer.

Roy H. Williams

But in the real world, dismissing employees is far more complicated —emotionally, ethically, and legally. How to dismiss employees isn’t taught in business school, and managers often fumble the process. Mahesh Guruswamy has spent much of his career delivering bad news — not just to employees but also to customers, investors, and even his superiors. Today Mahesh is sharing his hard-earned wisdom with roving reporter Rotbart. Make time for this episode! You are about to learn some incredibly valuable things at MondayMorningRadio.com.

Allow me to explain.

Anyone who talks to a jeweler will be told that diamonds are graded according to the 4 C’s: Color, Clarity, Carat weight, and Cut.

Customers ask the jeweler, “Which of the 4 Cs is most important?”

This seems like a perfectly reasonable question, but the truth is that the 4 C’s cannot be compared to one another. There is no rubric, no metric, no algorithm that can equate them. The 4 C’s are distinctly separate from one another. They are not interchangeable.

Advertising is like that. Each of the characteristics of highly effective advertising are distinctly separate from one another. They are not interchangeable.

Natural diamonds can be an infinite number of shades of yellow, grey, brown, green, blue, red, or a mixture thereof. Diamonds can also be colorless.

Color is a measurement of rarity, not beauty.

Clarity is another measurement of rarity, not beauty.

“Flawless” clarity refers to a diamond which is free of inclusions under 10x magnification. But under 40x magnification every flawless diamond is swimming with inclusions that cannot be seen under 10x. So get this idea of “flawless” out of your head, okay? It is a myth.

Seven clarity grades below flawless is another clarity known as SI2, which looks flawless to the naked eye. Not even a jeweler can tell the difference without 10x magnification. But there is a huge difference in price between flawless and SI2 because Clarity is a measurement of rarity, not beauty, remember?

Carat weight is how the size of a diamond is measured. We’ll come back to this in a minute.

Cut does not refer to the shape of the diamond, but to the ability of the diamond to gather light, bounce it between the facets, and then shine it upward toward the eyes. When diamonds are cut perfectly, they do not leak light out of the bottom of the diamond. A perfectly cut diamond returns 100% of internalized light upward and outward in a wild spectacle of sparkles.

When you cut a diamond crystal perfectly, you lose more than half of that diamond’s Carat weight. But if you cheat the cut a little, the diamond won’t sparkle as much but it will weigh more and sell for more money.

If you cut the diamond with a thick girdle and a deep pavilion, the diamond will be dull because its internal mirrors will be misaligned, but it will be much heavier than if it were cut properly.

A Carat is a unit of weight. There are 141.748 Carats in an ounce. This means that a small pouch of 1-Carat diamonds worth just $4,000 each will cost you $567,000 an ounce.

Pure gold is less than $3,000 an ounce.

Are you beginning to understand why diamond cutters are loath to grind away precious carat weight in the quest for maximum sparkle?

Your logical mind tells you that it should be possible to create a diamond algorithm that says, “one colorgrade = 0.05 carats = 0.78 of a clarity grade = 2.13% excess weight above the projected carat weight for a perfectly cut diamond of this diameter.”

Your logical mind tells you this because you continue to believe that dissimilar properties such as color, clarity, carat weight, and cut can be quantified, codified, and reconciled.

In truth, they cannot.

The rubric used to calculate the Gross Rating Points achieved in media schedules makes perfect sense until you realize it equates dissimilar properties and treats them as though they are interchangeable:

Reach = the total number of different people who experienced your ad within a specified period of time.

Frequency = how often the average person experienced your ad.

If half the people experienced your ad only once, and the other half experienced it twice, your ad campaign would score a Frequency of 1.5 in your specified window of measurement.

How Gross Rating Points are calculated. (And they will always automatically be calculated by the media sellers.)

STEP ONE: Reach x Frequency (repetition) = Gross Impressions

STEP TWO: Gross Impressions

cast as a percentage of the Nielsen population of your trade area

= Gross Rating Points. (GRP’s)

STEP THREE: Cost Per Gross Rating Point or CPP (Cost Per Point) is calculated by

A: the cost of the schedule

B: divided by the number of Gross Rating Points it delivers.

If the population of your trade area is 765,432 people and your ad schedule delivers 765,432 Gross Impressions in the specified window of time, your schedule achieved 100 Gross Rating Points, (the mathematical equivalent of having reached 100% of your trade area 1 time)

Perhaps you reached 50% of the city twice.

Maybe you reached 33.3% of the city 3 times.

You might have reached 25% of the city 4 times.

Or 10% of the city 10 times, 5% of the city 20 times,

Or 1 sad bastard 765,432 times.

Do you believe that each of those schedules will deliver the same result?

Of course not.

But each of them delivers 100 Gross Rating Points.

The fatal mistake was made in Step One. Reach and Frequency (repetition) are not interchangeable. You cannot multiply one times the other to get “Gross Rating Points.” That’s just stupid.

Any local business that evaluates ad schedules based on their Cost Per Point will always reach too many people with too little repetition.

Reach is easy to achieve. Frequency is hard to achieve unless you bite the hook of broad rotators which are added to your schedule at little or no cost. If you allow this “added value” to be included in the calculation of your reach and frequency, you are going to be deeply disappointed in the results of your ad campaign.

You do not want to reach 100% of the people and convince them 10% of the way when the same small ad budget will let you reach 10% of the people and convince them 100% of the way.

Repetition is what you’re after. You need an absolute minimum frequency of 2.5 per week, every week. If you accept the logic that “on a week, off a week” is all that you can afford, your schedule is going to fail.

The Nielsen schedule report you want to see is a report that no one wants to show you. (Did I say Nielsen? Yes, I said Nielsen. I did not say another name.) You want to see Net Persons and Frequency for a ONE WEEK schedule, Monday through Sunday. And no broad rotators – zero – can be included in this calculation. And you must buy this ONE WEEK schedule 52 weeks per year.

But the second 25% – giving you Net Persons that total around 50% of the city – will cost you nearly twice the amount you spent to buy the first 25%.

The problem you run into is the declining efficiency of achieving new Net Reach due to cume duplication, or “shared audience.” But if you schedule that first 25% of the population correctly, you will soon be able to easily afford the price of reaching and owning that second 25%. Because you will have grown monster big.

You are fooling yourself if you believe you can efficiently reach more than 50% of your city.

And when I say city, I mean the 18+ Nielsen Population of your trade area.

Like I said, buying advertising is far more complicated than buying diamonds.

Roy H. Williams

Next Week: Media Measurement Mistakes: Chapter 2

By the way, the Tiny Tribe and I have prepared an exceptional rabbit hole for you today. To enter the rabbit hole just click the image of me at the top of this page. And once inside, each image you click will take you one page deeper. – Indy Beagle

Israel Duran shows people how to transform their businesses. And then he shows them how to leverage that success to impact, inspire, and influence their communities. Israel describes himself as an “impact architect” who helps business owner make money, make a name, and make a difference. Learn how to do it at MondayMorningRadio.com

GOOD NEWS: Our bonds with our families and friends are as strong as ever.

BAD NEWS: The bridges we once extended to strangers have collapsed.

Jesus talks about a socially unacceptable “Samaritan” man who sacrificed his time, energy, and money to help an unconscious stranger who had been robbed and left to die at the side of the road. According to Jesus, two different religious people had already seen the wounded man, but crossed over to the other side of the road so they could pretend they hadn’t seen him.

They saw a stranger in need and felt nothing.

The internet promised to bring us closer together through instantaneous, worldwide, one-on-one communication.

But then came the algorithms, those digital sheepdogs that segregate us into echo chambers where every voice we hear sounds exactly like our own.

The easiest way to build an online audience – or a church – is to criticize and demonize “them,” the people who are “not like you… not like us.” Algorithms will help you do this. All you have to do is craft a message that says, “All the world’s problems are caused by ‘them,’ and it is up to ‘us’ to save the future, and America, and the world, from ‘them.'”

You don’t build bridges to people that you believe are “getting what they deserve.”

“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.” – Jesus

David Brooks recently posted a YouTube video that will make you feel wonderful and give you hope.

I hope you will invest the time to watch it. In fact, I challenge you to watch the first 3 minutes. The odds are extremely high that you will happily choose to watch the remaining 18 minutes.

That YouTube video is titled “David Brooks: Making People Feel Seen: How to Do It Right.”

I’m betting it will be your favorite 21 minutes of the week.

It will also be a signal to the algorithm that you are headed in a new direction.

Merry Christmas.

– Roy H. Williams

“If people looked at the stars each night, they’d live a lot differently. When you look into infinity, you realize that there are more important things than what people do all day.” – Bill Watterson, Calvin and Hobbes 

Jeffrey Eisenberg and Dewey Jenkins don’t know each other but each of them taught me the importance of removing the friction.

Dewey sings it to every person in his company, “Make it easy for customers to do business with us.” And they do. Inventing new ways to “make it easier” is the job of every person in every department.

Jeffrey Eisenberg calls this “removing the friction in the buying process”.

I am convinced that a number of other companies are building electric vehicles that are as good ­– or better – than Tesla, but Tesla remains the big name with the big stock price. At the time of this writing, Tesla is selling for $181 a share while Volkswagen is at $18, Subaru is at $8, Ford is at $13, Audi is at $19, Mercedes is at $20, BMW is at $35, and Rivian is at $15.

Buying a car from Tesla is as easy as buying a book from Amazon. And I don’t mean that figuratively. I mean that literally. People who order a car from Tesla look up from their computer screen with a puzzled look on their face and ask, “Did I just buy a new car?” And then they look back at their computer screen and nod their head up-and-down slowly as they say, “Yes, I just bought a new car.”

Go ahead and try it. It will only cost you $500.

Princess Pennie ordered a Tesla a couple of months ago and was startled by how easy it was. Two weeks later, she decided she wanted to add the optional third row of seating. I watched her add that third row in less than 30 seconds with just two clicks. Tesla immediately displayed her new delivery date, and she closed her laptop. Done.

Meanwhile, our younger son spent an entire day at the Volkswagen dealer trying to order an electric SUV. He persevered for 8 grueling hours, but he got it done and the car soon arrived. He loves that vehicle, and rightfully so, but he says he would rather endure a tax audit, a root canal, and a prostate exam than go through the process of buying a Volkswagen again.

1-800-GOT-JUNK is a company entirely committed to removing the friction. Led by its founder, Brian Scudamore, “Making it easier for the customer” is an ongoing source of enthusiastic discussion at every level in that company.

Meanwhile, Google is introducing all kinds of new friction. Google “Best Electric Vehicles” and you will see pages of ads from manufacturers who want to sell you a car. Enter a different, more specific phrase and you’ll get that same list. In fact, any query that includes the word “electric” followed by any synonym for “car” will get you that list of ads.

Google got big by putting the customer ahead of the advertiser. They’re clearly not doing that anymore, so I’ve decided to give Bing a chance. I suspect there might be millions of other people slowly coming to that same conclusion right now.

But even though I am profoundly frustrated with Google, I remain encouraged that Dewey and Jeffrey and Brian Scudamore and the customer service team at Tesla remain committed to removing the friction at every point of contact, making it ever-increasingly easy for customers to do business with them.

I’m just an ad writer, so I’m not particularly good at refining the internal processes of running a business, but I highly admire those people who know how to do it.

How about you? Can you think of 10 tiny-little-things that would each make it a-little-bit-easier for customers to do business with you? Think of those 10 things as Exponential Little Bits; they don’t just add up, they multiply and go exponential.

And when you have implemented those 10 things, think of 10 more, and then implement those.

Rinse and repeat.

Keep it up and you’ll become the Tesla of your category.

Roy H. Williams

PS: After writing this memo, I went to Bing for the first time and entered “Best Electric Cars.” The top two listings were the answers to my question, both from reputable sources.

https://www.forbes.com/wheels/best/electric-cars

https://www.edmunds.com/electric-car

It’s possible that Bing will get greedy and lazy at some point in the future and lose their customer focus, but for now, they are my huckleberry. (“A penny for whoever will unload my supplies,” said the man with the wagon. “I’m your huckleberry,” replied a young man on the street.)

If you didn’t graduate from Harvard Business School, making sense of today’s bank failures, debt ceilings, inflation, currency fluctuations, and trade deficits – can be daunting. Eric Johnson is an instrument-rated pilot, surfer, black belt, astrophotographer, angel investor, and former CEO of a software engineering firm. He has spent 15 years decoding the mysteries of economics and can explain what an economy is and how it works. Eric shares these insightful answers with roving reporter Rotbart this week at MondayMorningRadio.com.

We're building a school of the communication arts. Do you want to come along?

Oh, the questions we'll answer together! The interesting things we'll find! We've built a chapel where we can think big thoughts. And a grand auditorium where we can exchange ideas. The things we'll talk about!

We need only a place to lay our heads when day is over and twilight darkens and campfires dim and talk is done. Will you help us build this place?

The Mainstream Many saw only rickety old windmills and a delusional old man. But Don Quixote saw defiant giants that had to be defeated for the good of the world.

“What giants?” said Sancho Panza.

“Those you see there,” answered his master, “with the long arms, and some have them nearly two leagues long.”

“Look, your worship,'' said Sancho. “What we see there are not giants but windmills, and what seem to be their arms are the vanes that turn by the wind and make the millstone go.”

“It is easy to see,” replied Don Quixote, “that you are not used to this business of adventures.”

– Don Quixote, 1605, by Miguel de Cervantes

I can relate to Don Quixote, can't you? Like him, I often feel that no one else sees the ugly giants that loom so large on my horizon. And like Quixote, I'm often told I'm delusional and irrelevant.

But the giants I see are real.

The Mainstream Many believe that all is well, education isn't broken, journalism hasn't lost its way, music and literature and art were never really important, and traditional advertising is working just fine. “All is well,” the many tell us. But when you look again with the eyes of your heart, you'll see a nation growing dumber, journalism becoming propaganda, art fading into yesterday, and advertising working less and less well.

There are currently 30,299 readers of these Monday Morning Memos who see the same giants I see. And together we're building Wizard Academy, a school of the communication arts. Our goal is to enhance the world's ability to communicate. I'm not talking about inventing new devices to help us reach each other. We already have those. I'm talking about knowing better what to say through this vast megaphone of technology. And how to say it better.

The citizens of the world have been handed cell phones and DVRs, satellite phones and Skype, websites and blogs, email attachments and streaming video and podcasting and Boomerang. We are children with loaded guns. Do you remember when terrorists beheaded an American and streamed his murder onto the internet? Millions of curious voyeurs witnessed it on their computer monitors. How many of those do you suppose were 8 year-olds who will forever carry the itching scab of that wound in their minds? No, don't tell me it was the same as in video games. Even 8 year-olds know that video games aren't real.

He was wearing an orange jump suit.

Can new messages be created to counteract that message? I believe they can. The next 3-day Magical Worlds Communications Workshop is scheduled for Dec. 6-8 at the new, 33-acre campus of Wizard Academy. You really should come and spend time with us.

Maybe we're crazy, tilting at windmills. Maybe we're defeating giants. You decide.

Roy H. Williams

How many months has it been since you went looking for information in the yellow pages? How many minutes has it been since you asked your favorite search engine?

I think you just answered the question about whether or not your local business needs a website.

Without a doubt, websites are the most overlooked vehicle of advertising for small, owner-operated businesses. Every retailer needs one. Every dentist, lawyer, accountant and minister needs one. Every café, restaurant, coffee shop and nightclub needs one. Every wholesale supply company needs one.

I'm not suggesting that all these need to accept online orders and actually transact business online. I'm just saying that everyone listed in yesterday's yellow pages needs to be available on today's internet. It's where your customers expect to find you.

Properly constructed, a website allows your prospects to gather information from the privacy of their computer monitors. What are the questions you answer every day? And what, exactly, do you say to customers when you're speaking to them face-to-face? This is exactly the information that needs to be available on your website.

Think of your website as a relationship deepener, a half-step between your advertising and your front door.

Do you suppose it's easier:

(1.) to convince customers to visit your website, or

(2.) to convince them to get in their car, drive to your store, park that car and walk in your door?

Additionally, internet is heaven-on-earth for the 49 percent of our population that's introverted.

Introverts prefer to gather information anonymously, unlikely to dial your telephone number except as a last resort. Even more unlikely is that they'll choose to walk into your store and engage a chatty salesperson. But don't think introverts are shy. They simply like to gather the facts before putting themselves into a position where they're likely to be asked to answer questions. Forty-nine percent of your customers prefer to know what they're coming to buy before they walk in your door. And even the extraverted, chatty 51 percent will appreciate an informative website that functions as an expert salesperson during the hours you're not open for business.

Don't think for a moment that your customers aren't already online.

Every time a client tells me their customers are too old, too monied, or too traditional to be online, I immediately gather a crowd of them and ask, “How many of you have used a search engine in the past 7 days to research a product or service you were considering?” I raise my own hand.

The hands raised in echo are never less than 85 percent of the crowd.

Launch a website. Make it interesting. And watch your in-store sales begin to climb.

Roy H. Williams

Mabel is a widow deep in poverty with two hungry children of her own. Washing other people’s laundry ten hours a day, Mabel earns barely enough money to keep them fed. To keep a roof over their heads, she works for a real estate man who moves her and the children from shack to shack “to clean them up and make them salable.” But poor though she is, Mabel can’t watch a baby go unloved, so she makes room in her home and her heart for Jimmy, an abandoned baby that was left on her doorstep.

Throughout his childhood, Jimmy will wear old, second-hand clothes because that’s the best Mabel can do. His shoelaces will be broken and knotted. He’ll never own a pair of skates, a bicycle, a baseball glove or a toy of any kind. But when his little town opens a public library, he and a girl named Margaret will be the first in line to receive library cards. One day, as the pair are searching for books they’ve not yet read, the librarian says, “Goodness, Margaret and Jimmy, I believe you’ve read all the children’s books we have! If you wish, you can start on the other shelves.”

Margaret Mead will grow up to author 20 books and serve as president of a number of important scientific associations, including the American Anthropological Association and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. She will receive 28 honorary doctorate degrees from America’s leading universities and in 1978, be given the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

As an adolescent, Jimmy hitchhikes his way from Pennsylvania to Florida and back again with only 35 cents in his pocket. By the time he graduates from high school, he will have visited all but 3 of the 48 contiguous states. In the Navy, Jim rises to the rank of lieutenant commander, serving on some 49 different islands in the South Pacific during World War II. Each night, he writes his thoughts and impressions in a journal.

“Sitting there in the darkness, illuminated only by the flickering lamplight, I visualized the aviation scenes in which I had participated, the landing beaches I’d seen, the remote outposts, the exquisite islands with bending palms, and especially the valiant people I’d known: the French planters, the Australian coast watchers, the Navy nurses, the Tonkinese laborers, the ordinary sailors and soldiers who were doing the work, and the primitive natives to whose jungle fastnesses I had traveled.”

The book that will emerge from Jim’s journal will be published as Tales of the South Pacific and win the Pulitzer Prize in 1948. And by the time he’s done, James Michener will have written more than 40 books that will collectively sell more than 100 million copies. He will be granted more than 30 honorary doctorates in 5 fields and receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1977. His cash donations to public libraries and universities will exceed 117 million dollars.

It seems a child can learn a lot by just reading.

Roy H. Williams

No one wants to be average. But everyone wants to be normal.

What's up with that?

You can't imitate your way to excellence. It can be achieved only by breaking away from the pack, abandoning the status quo.

But breaking away from the pack is also the way to spectacular failure.

Are you beginning to understand why there is so little excellence in the world?

A weird person who succeeds is called eccentric. A weird person who fails is called a loser. Most people just walk the middle path and wonder what might have been.

If there is, somewhere, a Book of Days, what will be written in it about you? Will the book say you played it safe, never took a chance and were buried in such-and-such a place?

I think Tom Peters gave excellent advice to managers when he said, “Reward excellent failures. Punish mediocre successes.”

The New York Times tells us, “She embarked on a show-business career at 15 by going to Manhattan and enrolling in John Murray Anderson's dramatic school. From the first, she was repeatedly told she had no talent and should return home. She tried and failed to get into four Broadway chorus lines, so she became a model for commercial photographers. She won national attention as the Chesterfield Cigarette Girl in 1933. This got her to Hollywood as a Goldwyn chorus girl. For the next two years she played unbilled, bit roles in two dozen movies. She then spent seven years at RKO, where she got leading roles in low-budget movies. But she was wrongly cast and mostly wasted in films.”

In all, Lucille Ball appeared in 72 B-movies before she became too old to be credible as a female love-interest. Her lackluster career on the silver screen ended without fanfare in 1948. So at the age of 37, Lucy left the movies, swallowed her pride and became Liz Cooper on the live radio show, My Favorite Husband.

Jess Oppenheimer, her director, tells the story. “I remember telling Lucy, 'Let go. Act it out. Take your time.' But she was simply afraid to try. So one day, at rehearsal, I handed Lucy a couple of Jack Benny tickets. She looked at me blankly. 'What are these for?'

'I want you to go to school,' I told her.

It did the trick. When Lucy came into the studio for the next rehearsal, I could see she was excited. 'Oh my God, Jess,' she gushed, 'I didn't realize!'

She just couldn't wait to get started trying out the new, emancipated attitude she had discovered. On that week's show Lucy really hammed it up, playing it much broader than she ever had before. She coupled this with her newfound freedom of movement, and there were times I thought we'd have to catch her with a butterfly net to get her back to the microphone. The audience roared their approval, and Lucy loved it. So did I.”

Released from her fear, Lucy Ricardo had been born.

In 1951, a middle-aged Lucy leaped out from our black-and-white television screens into every living room in America. “To say that Lucille Ball was a phenomenon is an understatement. Through sheer determination and hard work, this one woman fundamentally changed the broadcast industry forever.” – Susan Lacy, winner of 5 Emmys as executive producer of American Masters

Most people, when they finally become successful, become conservative. Fearful of losing what they've gained, they abandon the behaviors that brought them success. But not Lucy. As the fearless owner of Desilu Studios, she took two enormous chances: Star Trek and Mission: Impossible. American television would never be the same.

On April 27, 1989, the New York Times ran her obituary. Its last few sentences were these:

Addressing a group of would-be actors, she said the best way to get along with tough directors was “don't die when they knock you down.” She said she was very shy at the start of her career, but overcame it when “it finally occurred to me that nobody cared a damn.”

Associates called Miss Ball self-reliant, sympathetic and sometimes tempestuous. ''Life is no fun,'' she once said, ''without someone to share it with.''

Miss Ball is survived by her husband, her daughter, her son and three grandchildren.

Funeral plans were incomplete last night.

Lucille Ball failed often and well, seeing failure only as a form of education. She broke the old rules and wrote new, redheaded ones, inspiring you and me to do the same.

When you leave behind a legacy of courage, are funeral plans – or even funerals – ever really “complete?”

Roy H. Williams

Relentless repetition was once enough to drive your message home. But it isn't quite that simple anymore. The impact of your message in this over-communicated hour depends largely on the structural basis of your statements.

A statement is either fact-based or values-based.

A fact-based statement must be true or false. If true, it is a correct statement. If false, it is incorrect. But it is a fact-based statement either way.

Fact-based statements can be proven or disproven objectively. They cannot, by nature, include opinion. But the 'truth' of a values-based statement hinges on agreed-upon values. Consequently, values-based statements have the look and feel of fact-based statements to persons of the same opinion.

“Our parking lot has spaces for 38 cars” is a fact-based statement. It can be proven or disproven objectively. Just count the spaces. Personal values and opinions don't matter.

“There's always plenty of parking” is a values-based statement. (How much parking, exactly, is 'plenty'?)

“D-color diamonds are more rare than J-color diamonds,” is a fact-based statement.

“D-color diamonds are more beautiful than J-color diamonds,” is a values-based statement. (And in my opinion, entirely untrue.)

“The Academy Reunion and Open House is October 15 on the new campus of Wizard Academy,” is a fact-based statement.

“We've planned some fabulous surprises for you,” is values based.

“Iraq has weapons of mass destruction” is a fact-based statement.

“Saddam Hussein is a bad ruler” is entirely values-based.

Calm down. I use that example only to illustrate how quickly disagreements can arise over statements that are values-based.

Modern advertising overflows with values-based statements: “Big selection.” “High quality.” “Low prices.” “Easy credit.” Even though these statements may be true in the mind of the advertiser, the public has heard them all before.

The left hemispheres of our brains detect fact-based statements and prefer them to statements that are values-based. Having been suffocated by hype for the past 40 years, we hunger today for statements of fact.

Seven years ago I wrote a chapter called The 12 Most Common Mistakes in Advertising. Among those mistakes was, “4. Unsubstantiated claims. Advertisers often claim to have what the customer wants, such as 'highest quality at the lowest price,' but fail to offer any evidence. An unsubstantiated claim is nothing more than a cliché the prospect is tired of hearing. You must prove what you say in every ad. Do your ads give the prospect new information? Do they provide a new perspective? If not, prepare to be disappointed with the results.” Today I accelerate that statement: If you would persuade today's hype-resistant customer, you must learn to make fact-based statements in your ads.

Specifics are more believable than generalities.

Roy H. Williams

Do you want more free time? Then you must buy it. Free time is never free.

There are only four ways you can buy free time:

1. Work fewer hours. Learn to say no. You'll have more free time immediately.

Cost: Lost opportunities, reduced income.

2. Develop systems, methods and procedures that save time.

Cost: Time and money spent in developing those systems, methods and procedures.

3. Recruit, hire, train and manage other people to do your work for you.

Cost: Time and money spent in recruiting, hiring, training and managing.

I heartily recommend these three methods. But I recommend against number four:

4. Be the recipient of a large inheritance or insurance settlement, win the lottery, marry a rich person.

Cost: Loss of identity, loss of self.

That last statement will surely win me a flurry of emails from angry “happy people” who married someone rich. “How dare you say that! I married a rich person and my life has been full and complete.” Okay, so you're the rare exception. But I'm sure you'll agree that money is an insulator. It shields us from problems, and perhaps that's good. But it shields us from challenges as well. Money is the glove that keeps us from feeling the texture and ripples of life.

Nothing is so rewarding as making a difference. Especially when it involves self-sacrifice. But when a challenge can be overcome by the mere stroke of your pen, the reward always seems less intimate. Is this perhaps what Jesus meant when he said, “Blessed are the poor, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven?” (Note to Anxious Expositors: that question was rhetorical. I'm not really asking what Jesus meant, okay?)

In the tenth chapter of Mark's history, a wealthy young man asks Jesus how to receive life. Mark tells us, “Jesus looked at him and loved him.”

Okay, so far so good. Jesus really likes this guy and wants to help him experience the visceral joy he craves. “One thing you lack,” Jesus said. “Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and come, follow me.”

Mark reports the young man walked away sad. Removing the glove of wealth was, for him, a price too high to pay for joy.

Please note that neither Mark nor I are insinuating that it was the young man's moral duty to liquidate his holdings. Jesus was merely pointing out the high emotional cost of wearing the glove of wealth.

What's my point? Only this: excitement and reward exist only outside your comfort zone. You'll experience neither of them until you make yourself do something you really don't want to do.

So what is it that scares the hell out of you?

Roy H. Williams

We Baby Boomers had beautiful dreams back in the '60s and '70s, but we didn't do much about them. It was enough back in those days just to “Visualize World Peace” and sing wistfully about a brighter tomorrow. Remember John Lennon's song, Imagine?

Imagine no possessions.

I wonder if you can.

No need for greed or hunger,

A brotherhood of man.

Imagine all the people

Sharing all the world…

You may say I'm a dreamer,

but I'm not the only one,

I hope some day you'll join us,

And the world will live as one.

But dreaming didn't change the world. We don't all live in a yellow submarine.

Those who have heard me explain Society's 40-year Pendulum will recall my conviction that we're in the third year of a new generational cycle that will be remembered for its small-but-effective actions rather than its grand-but-impotent dreams. This new worldview is clearly communicated in the recent movie, Batman Begins, when Bruce Wayne's childhood friend says to him, “It's not who you are inside, but what you do that defines you.”

Two weeks ago I made my famous Pendulum presentation to the good folks of Procter and Gamble at their world headquarters in Cincinnati. They loved it; said it explained a lot of weird phenomena they're seeing. Last week I presented it to the senior execs of Clear Channel Communications. They, too, were deeply moved. I'll be doing it one more time on October 15 at the Wizard Academy Reunion and Open House in Austin. Are you coming?

Remember what I'm about to tell you: 2006 and 2007 will be years in which the world of advertising changes in tumultuous ways. You can ride these waves of change to the far horizon or you can attempt to tread water, stay where you are, and fight the undertow. I'll be talking about these coming changes on October 15 as well.

Free the Beagle.

Roy H. Williams

It was a term once used to describe exceptional jazz musicians. African-Americans spelled it “hepcat,” while their white counterparts heard “cat” and assumed “hep” to be a modifier. Hence, “hep cat.”

In 1942 Bob Clampett created the first color Looney Tunes cartoon, The Hep Cat, featuring an unnamed feline that would later develop a lisp and become known as Sylvester, (derived from silvestris, the scientific name for the cat species.) Soon, people were being referred to as all kinds of cats, as in cool cat, crazy cat, and “hep” became “hip.”

And it all came from the African Wolof word “hipikat,” meaning, “someone finely attuned to his/her environment.” Makes sense, right? An inspired improv from a blower in sync with his fellow jazz musicians would trigger the rejoinder “hipikat” from a bystander familiar with the African word. Anglos heard “hep cat” and a new, misheard word was born.

Language is an interesting thing. If you enjoyed that brief summary of “hep cat,” then you're definitely my brand of crazy. I enjoyed it, too. Arooo! Aroo-Arooooo!

New subject: Winning a Race

Nothing changes when you win a footrace. But the person who wins the hearts of men and women can wonderfully change the future. Do you have the skill to win the eye, the ear, the doubting heart? Can you win the human race?

Wizard Academy is a school of the communication arts. The majority of our students come to us to learn how to create ads that will make them money, make presentations that will make them money, or win promotions at work that will make them money. The footrace of business holds a magnetic attraction; it never ceases to draw a crowd, easily winning the mind and wallet. Please don't think I'm disparaging it.

But the heart, the heart, remains in the hands of the arts. Journalists and novelists and screenwriters and musicians, painters and poets, playwrights and performers, sculptors and singers, architects and photographers shape our ever-changing mood and guide us toward the future. Artists such as these are attending Wizard Academy in increasing numbers since the methods and principles we teach are just as easily applied to the arts as they are to business.

Alumni interested in furthering their knowledge of the heart-arts will be delighted to know that discussions are continuing with acad-grad David Freeman to bring his paradigm-expanding Visual Emotioneering course to Wizard Academy. David is currently the object of an epic tug-of-war, with Hollywood pulling him into movies and Japan pulling him into video games. Both are willing to pay whatever it takes, but David really wants to hang with his homies at the Academy. Stay tuned.

Another Acad-grad Writes a Big Book: Bag the Elephant

(subtitled, How to Win and Keep BIG Customers.)

Steve Kaplan is the nicest guy you'll ever meet, the boy every mom wishes her daughter would bring home for dinner. He could easily have been a regular on Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood.

So did Steve became rich as a salesman because he was nice, or in spite of it? In his new book, Steve tells you exactly how he bagged the elephants, and how you can, too. I strongly suggest you pick up a copy at your local bookstore, or order one at amazon.com, (discounted there to just $13.57 in hardback.) Grab it now, before the first printing is all sold out and a waiting list is formed. And keep your eye on the bestseller lists. Wizard Academy grads are on the move.

Join us, and become hipikat.

Roy H. Williams

Media fragmentation and the evolution of social values are forcing advertisers to spend more and more money to reach fewer and fewer people. Two weeks ago I mentioned the possibility of using non-traditional media (NTM) as a supplement to your advertising. One of the most effective forms of NTM today is Corporate Art.

Think of it as advertising, but of a permanent sort.

What are the landmarks in your town?

The faces on Mt. Rushmore were funded by the state of South Dakota to bring tourism and money to the state. It worked.

That famous hillside HOLLYWOOD sign was erected to sell lots in a 1920's Los Angeles subdivision. It worked.

America's most precious paintings of the romantic West were originally commissioned by railroads to be published in magazine ads and on calendars in an effort to stimulate travel by rail. It worked. Taos and Sedona and Santa Fe are thriving today because of the romantic glow of those ads.

In fact, many of our most important cultural icons began as corporate art: Cinderella's Castle at Disney World. The Chrysler Building in New York. Rockefeller Center. Times Square. Carnegie Hall. Each of these is architectural, corporate art.

Standing 76 feet tall, Tulsa's kitschy corporate art is the Golden Driller, a mammoth oilman with his hand atop a drilling rig, a gift to the city of Tulsa from Mid-Continent Supply Company in 1953. Having grown up there, I can tell you that no other icon is as deeply associated with the town. The Golden Driller's image is everywhere.

According to Wizard of Ads partner Sonja Howle, Corporate Art:

1. Communicates (A) your brand essence. (B) the core values of your company.

2. Stimulates employee pride.

3. Can be used repeatedly (A) to cut costs in ad production, (B) on calendars, invitations, thank-you cards, etc.

4. Triggers community recognition, opens a door for press coverage.

5. Offers tax benefits.

6. Appreciates as a corporate asset.

7. Establishes an ongoing legacy.

Does your company have something to say to the world that might be expressed in art?

We'll talk a little more about Corporate Art as a Tool of Marketing – as well as several other iterations of NTM – at the upcoming Academy Reunion and Open House on Oct. 15.

See you there.

Roy H. Williams

I am, for the moment, alive and well as an ad writer. But I feel I'm being stalked by iPods, cell phones, instant messaging, and increasingly fragmented media choices. And they're all gunning for my life.

Over-communication rides rampant across the mindscape of America, putting greater-than-ever pressure on ad writers to create ads that produce results.

Today I will teach you how to write such ads.

The opening line is the key to impact. So open big. I'm not talking about hype; “Save up to 75 percent off this week only at blah, blah blah.” I'm talking about a statement that is fundamentally more interesting than what had previously occupied your customer's mind.

Wasn't your attention piqued by the opening line, “I Did Not Die Today?” Magnetism is why I chose it. Frankly, I had no idea how I was going to bridge from that opening line into the subject matter at hand. But it can always be done.

Be bold and have confidence; a bridge can be built from any concept to any other concept.

Here's a glimpse of an advanced technique I call Chaotic Ad Writing:

1. Don't consider your subject matter before deciding how to introduce it.

2. Never open with “ad-speak.” especially one of those insultingly obvious questions directed at the customer, such as, “Are you interested in saving money?” These questions are so overused they've deteriorated into horrible clichés. Provocative rhetorical questions are okay however, such as “Whatever happened to Gerald Ford?”

3. Think of a magnetic opening statement from way beyond the fence in left field; something certain to captivate.

4. Figure out how to bridge from that opener into your subject matter.

5. The opening line will surprise Broca's Area of the brain and gain you entrance to the central executive of working memory, conscious awareness, focused attention. The central executive will then decide whether the thought has relevance to the listener. This is what your bridge must supply.

6. Write a bridge that justifies your magnetic opening line. If you fall short here, your opener will be perceived as hype. Game over.

7. Insert your subject matter into the seam created by your opening line and bridge.

8. Close by looping back to your opening line.

It's really not that hard.

Hey, that's another good opener: “It's really not that hard.” You could easily bridge from that opening line into a powerful ad for any product or service.

Here are some other openers for you to try:

“I've heard your heart stops when you sneeze.”

“I like the TV commercials with the Keebler elves.”

“Plutonium is the rarest of all substances.”

Here's what I've done so far:

1. I opened with “I Did Not Die Today,” having absolutely no idea how I would bridge from that line into the subject matter of this memo.

2. I created a bridge to justify my opening line: “I am, for the moment, alive and well as an ad writer. But I feel I'm being stalked by iPods, cell phones, instant messaging and increasingly fragmented media choices. And they're all gunning for my life.”

3. I gave you details to satisfy the central executive's demand for relevance: “Over-communication rides rampant across the mindscape of America, putting greater-than-ever pressure on ad writers to create ads that produce results for the customer. Today I will teach you how to write such ads.”

4. I inserted my subject matter into the seam created by my opening line and bridge; I gave you a new writing technique.

5. Now it's time to close by looping back to the opening line. Let's see if I can do it:

The times are changing, and so must ad writers if we will live to see another day. Will you change with the times? Or will you continue to wear the blindfold of yesterday's ad-writing style and walk voluntarily before the firing squad?

Roy H. Williams

When your advertising leans on the weak wooden crutch of discounting, it is only a matter of time before that crutch splinters and slowly pierces your heart.

Discounting is a seductive drug like heroin, meth, and fentanyl. It rarely kills you quickly.

It prefers to kill you slowly.

Yes, I know that is an uncomfortable image, but I need you to understand how dangerous it is to discount.

Discounting erodes customers’ confidence in your pricing and trains them to delay purchasing from you until you offer them a juicy discount. Discounting also raises some questions about the quality of your product.

But hooray, that’s not what we’re talking about today.

Today I’m going to give you a method for acquiring customers that is far more powerful than discounting. This method allows you to pay for the results of your advertising according to how well your ads work.

No, we’re not talking about pay-per-click. (Remember, you’ve got to pay for that click even if the customer gives you a glance, flips you the bird, and walks away.) I have a Love/Hate relationship with pay-per-click and I’ll bet you do, too.

What I’m about to share with you is Love/Love/Love/Love.

1. I love it.
2. It loves me.
3. You’re going to love it.
4. You’re going to love me for telling you about it.

What can you give away for free?

Thirty years ago, I was given an ad budget of $10,000 and asked to bring 500 new customers to a struggling frozen custard business that had two locations, but neither one of them had inside dining. These frozen custard stands were walk-up and drive-thru only. And this was during the middle of the winter in a state where ice and snow are a regular occurrence.

I asked, “Do you care how I spend the money?”

“No. We just need to see 500 new customers.”

“Great. I’m going to spend $500 in a single day on radio ads on the smallest radio station in town and then I’m going to spend $1,700 on custard mix. You can keep the other 78-hundred. Get a good night’s sleep on Friday night because you’re going to be working 14 hours on Saturday.”

My radio ad ran twice an hour from 6am until midnight on the day of the event.

It said, “This frozen custard is so good it’s illegal in 7 states and under investigation in 12 more. And today, just to prove it, we’re giving away full-size cones for free.”

I called them just after midnight.

I asked, “Did anyone show up?”

“We just finished counting the empty cone boxes. We served 11,000 free cones today and at least 10,000 of those were people we had never seen before.”

Their business immediately jumped by 80% and their sales volume never quit climbing. Today they have 53 locations in 15 states.

Another example is the air conditioning company that had a history of giving customers a 15-hundred-dollar cash rebate if they purchased a new air conditioning system in October.

In 2014, I convinced them that customers would much rather have an iPad. Relatively few people had them back then.

They said, “But an iPad is only $700. What do we do with the rest of the money?”

I said, “Buy a few extra iPads for the people who call you and say, ‘Hey! I bought a new air conditioner from you two months ago. Where’s my iPad?’”

They sold a huge number of new air conditioning systems in October, two months after air conditioning season was over.

The more irresistible your offer, the better it will work. If you try this and it doesn’t work, you made a weak offer that was easy to ignore. Your offer has to be remarkable.

During the worst part of the Covid lockdown when doctors and nurses were working round-the-clock and everyone was losing hope, a jeweler crafted a beautiful lapel pin and paid a few dollars each to have 2,000 of them made.

The ad said, “Do you know a medical professional? Let them know that we have a special lapel pin or pendant for them and it’s free. It features a gorgeous pair of angel’s wings sprouting from the sides of a caduceus, that universal symbol of the medical profession. It’s a gift to every doctor and nurse from all of us, everyone in the city. We just want to say thank you for taking care of us.”

What we learned from that experience is that two thousand doctors and nurses coming into your store translates into millions of dollars in additional sales volume.

Is this making sense to you?

Here’s a question. What percentage of your sales comes from repeat customers and referral customers? Take a moment. Choose a percentage. Remember that percentage.

Second question. What percentage of your sales come from your highly visible signage, or branded vehicles on the road, or your marvelously visible location? Choose a percentage. Remember that percentage.

Add those two percentages together, then subtract them from 100 percent. Is that remaining number the percentage of your sales volume that comes from first-time customers?

Most business owners tell me that 10% to 20% of their sales are made to first-time customers. Did the percentage you calculated fall into that range?

Bringing customers back a second, third, fourth, of fiftieth time is cheap and easy IF THEY HAD A GOOD EXPERIENCE THE FIRST TIME. The challenge faced by every business owner is to bring new customers in for that crucial first visit.

Great ads remind your repeat customers of how much they love you. (This is important because people stay “reached” the way that grass stays mowed.) And great ads give increased confidence to your referral customers as well. But the monumental challenge faced by every business is to attract new, first-time customers and give them a happy first experience.

As I said earlier, I believe in only two prices: full price, and free.

What can you give away for free?

Roy H. Williams

PS: Plato once observed, “One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors.” Gene Sticco, an entrepreneur and U.S. Air Force special forces veteran, took the Greek philosopher’s words to heart when he launched his run for the 2024 presidency last month. Sticco’s campaign aligns with three of the core tenets that roving reporter Rotbart has emphasized in his courses at Wizard Academy:

1. Be audacious.

2. Act on your dreams and passions.

3. Let the naysayers laugh, then do it anyway.

Rotbart describes Gene as a serious candidate with no serious chance of winning. That said, for the inspiration Gene has to offer to business owners, entrepreneurs, and creatives, he is already a winner. You can vote for Gene with your ears, right now, at MondayMorningRadio.com

Do you remember the Seinfeld episode where Jerry, George and Elaine are waiting for a table in a Chinese restaurant? The plot revolves around the fact that George is desperate to make a phone call but the other guy won't get off the pay phone. That was 1991. The fact that somebody might have a phone in their pocket was unthinkable.

How about the Bubble Boy episode where Jerry and Elaine's car gets separated from George and Susan's car on the highway? Again the plot revolves around the fact that there's no possible way for them to reach each other. That was 1993.

Not many years ago I bought a new Mercedes with a factory telephone mounted in the console. The handset was corded like a standard desk phone. No one thought it looked ridiculous. That car was a 1999 model.

180 million Americans now carry cell phones in their purses or pockets and many of these are able to receive full-motion video. Newspaper, radio and television are no longer the new kids on the block. Even Ted Turner's cable and Japan's VHS tapes – once the bold new voices of a brave tomorrow – have become weary, bleary and stale.

Like it or not, we're entering an age of non-traditional media.

As I warned you 14 months ago, media is losing its mass. Each moment we're online is a moment we're not reading the newspaper or watching TV. Each minute we spend listening to a CD or an iPod is a minute we're not listening to the radio. None of these technologies will deal a deathblow to traditional mass media, but only a fool would contend they're not collectively shrinking it.

Please hear me right: Mass media isn't going to go away or “quit working.” It's merely going to become less effective than it has been in the past. This is why the 41 worldwide Wizard of Ads partners are aggressively investigating NTM, or “non-traditional media,” including product placement in video games and news shows, localized ads on satellite radio, hyperlinks from blogs, streaming video-on-demand to cell phones, and other new voices in the information avalanche.

Six years ago, the Monday Memo you're reading right now was distributed only by FAX. Email wasn't really viable as a replacement. Six. Short. Years.

You and I are surrounded by glittering new technologies. Our attitudes about advertising are evolving as well. In short, we're no longer entirely a “me” generation. Our kids are teaching us to become an interconnected “we,” saying, “Your advertising may fool one of us, but that one will tell the rest of us.”

The most powerful of today's non-traditional media are also the most overlooked:

1: Word of Mouth. It can be bought. But do you know how?

2: Your Sales Staff. Are they winning converts, or merely making sales?

3: Your Website. Would you like to see it finally start working?

A few weeks ago I told you to set aside October 15 to attend the Wizard Academy reunion and open house and promised that details would be announced “in a few weeks.”

Here are those promised details.

I'll be making virgin presentations on 3 new topics:

1. Direct Marketing: the equal-but-opposite corollary to Branding.

2. Non-Traditional Media: what's coming, what's already here, and how to use it NOW.

3. Word of Mouth: How to plan it and buy it like any other media.

Space limitations at the new campus dictate that we accept only the first 200 registrants. Sorry, but if your name isn't on the master list, you won't get past the security guard. We deeply regret that it has to be this way, but the Monday Memo subscriber list has grown too large for us to not put limitations on our invitations.

Robert Frost and Ponyboy were right; nothing gold can stay.

Come to Austin October 15 and see the treasure map that reveals where tomorrow's gold is buried.

Roy H. Williams

Have you ever been in a K-Mart during a “flashing blue light special?” The sad circus begins when an employee rolls out a chrome cart with a rotating blue light on a pole about 8 feet high. A voice on the intercom says, “Attention K-Mart shoppers,” and then tells you know how lucky you are to be in the store right now. They're about to offer an unadvertised special. Just follow the flashing blue light.

Watching those poor people follow that light is profoundly sad to me. It's the reason I quit shopping at K-Mart.

Our world is full of flashing blue lights that cause us to lose our focus and forget the reason we're here. Is there a blue light in your life right now?

Blue lights often arrive as an adversary that begs to be defeated.

No, I'm not talking about the war in Iraq. I'm talking about you and the distractions that cause you to forget your real purpose.

Have you allowed the merely urgent to replace the truly important?

I've made this memo short to help you justify taking a few minutes from your crazy schedule to just sit and think about what life is really all about.

Do it now. For yourself, and the people you love.

The world will wait.

Roy H. Williams

Okay, let's be clear about this: I'm proud of myself today. So proud, in fact, that you might want to skip reading this memo because all I'm going to do is strut. It could become sickening. Seriously.

Frankly, I can't believe you're still reading after a warning like that.

First it was Dr. Burkhardt Maess of the Max Planck Institute for Cognitive Neuroscience who proved my longstanding assertion that Broca's area of the brain anticipates the predictable. (This is important to you and me because Predictability is the killer of attention. If we want to gain and hold human attention, we must know how to stimulate Broca.)

Now neurologist Friedemann Pulvermuller of the Medical Research Council in Cambridge has shocked the scientific community by announcing that Wernicke's area and Broca's area gather sensory data from other brain areas and then compile it into complex mental images. According to the article, “These results challenge the theory that isolated, language-specific brain structures discern word meanings. Instead, they propose word understanding hinges on activation of interconnected brain areas that pull together knowledge about that particular word and its associated actions and sensations.”

Anyone who has attended one of my public seminars since 1996 has heard me explain this whole “pulling sensory data from associated areas” process in detail. I wrote about it in a series of Monday Morning Memos in 2001 and 2002 and then finally laid the matter to rest with the April, 2003 publication of the audiobook with transcript, Thought Particles: Binary Code of the Mind. Its description says, “This limited-edition insight contains one audio CD and one illustration CD unveiling the Wizard's theories on how thoughts are assembled in the mind from stored sensory associations.”

Why does any of this matter? Because the purpose of Wizard Academy is to forward the expansion of the communication arts.Our goal is to teach you how to more effectively change:

1. what people think, and

2. how they feel.

To do this, we must study how thoughts and feelings are gathered, stored, processed, and retrieved from memory.

Last week I wrote, “Wizard Academy is a school of the communication arts. We study all the languages of the mind, including shape, color, position, ratio, pitch, key, tempo, contour, musical interval, rhythm and architecture. But words have been the highest form of communication since Genesis chapter one, when God spoke a universe into existence and then created us in his image.”

But that is not to say that words are the only language of the mind. Wizard Academy is in the process of expanding its curricula to include investigations into the languages of:

1. music

2. color

3. shapes and symbols

4. ritual (as the language of a sports or business tribe)

5. phonemes

6. schema and worldview (as boundaries to understanding)

7. meter

8. mathematics (as a language of business, with emphasis on the ratios mentioned on pages 144-145 of Secret Formulas of the Wizard of Ads.

If you're an academy grad and would like to be considered as a possible instructor for one of these or another new curricula, please let Pennie@wizardacademy.org know of your field of interest and your current depth of research into it.

Now if you'll excuse me, I've got to march around the room and sing the Poky Little Puppy song at the top of my lungs (pages 192-193 of Secret Formulas.)

Roy H. Williams

One of these days I'm going to calculate the odds of pulling away from a drive-thru window and actually finding what was ordered in the bag.

For 3 years I've been calculating the odds of getting extra lemon for your tea when you add the phrase “lots of lemon, please” in America's better restaurants. Currently, this request will get you some small quantity of extra lemon 47.4 percent of the time; usually a single, sad slice alongside the sliver you were going to get anyway.

If you really want “lots of lemon,” you must raise the impact quotient of your message; paint a bigger picture in the mind. Smile and say, “I'd like iced tea with so many lemons that they slide off the table onto the floor. I'm talking about this restaurant being knee-deep in lemons when I leave, so many lemons that it takes two men and a little boy to carry them all. Will you do that for me?”

Do I get lots of lemon when I say this? Yes. Do I enjoy doing it? No. Do I think it's witty, cute, clever, funny? No.

I do it because I want the lemons.

What do you want? And how have you been asking for it?

Do you typically assume that people are paying attention when you speak? E. M. Cioran said, “If we could see ourselves as others see us, we would vanish on the spot.” I fear he was probably right.

The key to being understood is to raise the impact quotient of your message.

Have you figured out yet that we're talking about advertising? And sermons? And classroom lectures? And effective web copy? And blockbuster screenplays? And Pulitzer prize winning journalism?

The higher the impact quotient of your message, the less repetition is required to enter into declarative memory. The higher the impact quotient, the bigger the scene painted on the visuospatial sketchpad of working memory in the dorsolateral prefrontal association area of the brain.

Wizard Academy is a school of the communication arts. We study all the languages of the mind, including shape, color, position, ratio, pitch, key, tempo, contour, musical interval, rhythm and architecture. But words have been the highest form of communication since Genesis chapter one, when God spoke a universe into existence and then created us in his image.

Learn to harness the power of words. Can you name anything else that will make as big a difference in your life?

Roy H. Williams

Earth's population reached 1 billion persons in 1804, 2 billion in 1927, 3 billion in '59, 4 billion in '74 and 5 billion in late '86. And on October 12th, 1999, Earth's population surpassed 6 billion.

The number of passengers on Spaceship Earth has doubled (from 3 billion – 1959, to 6 billion – 1999,) in 40 short years. But we're not discussing population growth today, I'm just opening your eyes to perceptual reality.

The cognoscenti of Magical Worlds will remember a brief discussion of perceptual reality at the beginning of class. “Each of you will sit in this room for 3 days and hear the same information presented in precisely the same way. But you'll leave here having had an entirely different experience from the persons on your left and your right. You will connect different dots, have different epiphanies, make different associations. Objective reality will be the same for each of you. But your perceptual realities will be yours alone.”

There are 525,948.766 minutes in a year. This means that each minute, the 6 billion of us experience a collective 11,408 years of perceptual reality. And each day we live a collective 16,427,455 years.

Given that we lived nearly sixteen and a half million years yesterday, it seems like one of us would've figured out how to end poverty, crime and war, doesn't it? (Personally, I was really busy, so I was counting on you.)

Today's illustration is an image of the famous mime, Marcel Marceau, superimposed over a photo of Earth with snapshots of women and men on its surface. To the right is the cover of Paul Finley's awesome 14 Windows guitar CD.

You, reader, saw the same image as 30,000 other subscribers, but your perception was yours alone. You may have been confused by the image, amused by it, intrigued by it, or mildly or strongly disturbed by it. Perhaps you even saw a symbolic statement being made. I did not intend one.

Perceptual reality is yours alone.

Every door of opportunity begins as a window in your mind.

Look through that window of imagination and glimpse a world that could be, someday. Keep looking… Be patient… And watch it grow into a door of Opportunity through which you might pass into an entirely different future.

Opportunity never knocks. But 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.

So what are you going to do? Will you sleep, unaware of the miracles that need your assistance, or will you open your eyes, look through that window, and begin doing what only you can do?

Roy H. Williams

Last week a client achieved 42 percent of his market potential. Never before had I seen a business break the 40 percent barrier. It was kind of like seeing someone run a four-minute mile. I knew it was possible in theory, but I never thought I'd actually see it.

Ben had come to Austin for his annual marketing retreat. After the usual pleasantries, he said, “Traffic is flat, sales are flat, and I'm not happy.”

“Ben, you've done everything that can be done. You've trained your staff, created a tantalizing compensation structure for them, advertised relentlessly, added every conceivable product line that might increase your attractiveness to your customer, refined your purchasing methods so that your prices are visibly better, built a fabulous new store for the comfort of your customers, and through it all, not one of your competitors has awakened.”

“Are you saying that 3 and a half million is all that can be done in my town?” he bristled.

Looking him calmly in the eyes, I carefully enunciated a single word: “Evidently.”

Business owners, I tell Ben's story to give you a glimpse of the Realities of the Marketplace:

1. Impact Quotient. How powerful is your message compared to your competitors'? This is the Impact Quotient of your message, whether it's delivered through mass media, face-to-face by your salespeople, or word-of-mouth by your customers to their friends. Advertising is more effective when you have something to say.

2. Market Size/Ad Budget Ratio. How big is your town relative to your ad budget? The more populated the trade area, the more expensive it is to advertise. How able are you?

3. Competitive Environment. How good are you at what you do? More importantly, how good are your competitors and how many of them are there? Each of them is going to retain some customers regardless of what you do.

4. Market Potential. What is the potential of your trade area? The total dollars spent in your product category is a not a number you're likely to change. The question is, what percentage of that total will be yours?

Do you know your category's market potential in your trade area? Can you name the degree of your market penetration?

Until a business achieves 4 to 6 percent of their market potential, they usually lack the financial steam to sustain a serious move on the marketplace. But when they've accumulated sufficient cash and courage, the ride to 25 percent is wooly and wonderful. Growing from 25 to 33 percent is much harder than the jump from 5 to 25. And creeping from 33 to 40 happens only when you're blessed with very weak competitors.

Ben's total trade area contains 125,000 people. Statistically, they'll spend 67 dollars per person/per year in his product category. This gives Ben a market potential of 8,375,000 dollars. Growing from half a million to 2.1 million was fun and easy. Growing from 2.1 to 3.5 required Ben to stretch his comfort zone far beyond what most business owners would have been willing to consider. No stone has been left unturned in the 7 years we've been working together.

“Ben, the way I see it, you've got four choices:

1. Fire us and hire an ad firm that will tell you what you want to hear.

2. Start a new business in an unrelated category in your town.

3. Launch your existing category in another town.

4. Shut up and be happy with what you've accomplished.”

I knew that Ben would never do number 4. I figured he'd go for number 2, or possibly even number 1. To my surprise, he immediately picked number 3. “Roy,” he said, “You may not remember it, but you told me three years ago when I built the new store that I needed to be thinking about what I was going to do next. You said building that store was the final thing I might do to improve volume in my town. It looks like you were right.”

We spent the rest of that day evaluating towns for an excited Ben to visit in 4 different states. He's on the road picking one now, and then we'll start climbing again.

Business can be fun when you work with people of courage.

Do you?

This week we've spoken about marketplace realities. Next week I'll tell you about a reality of a different sort.

Roy H. Williams

If you want to glimpse the inner forces that drive an organization, you need only observe their methods and listen to their words. Especially when they're not paying attention.

Words and methods reveal motives. Listen to a person carefully and you will hear the beating of their heart. Do what they do and you'll become who they are. So be careful whose advice you take and whose methods you adopt.

You cannot use the tools of another without placing your hands where their hands have been. Desire their outcome, adopt their methods, and you embrace the values that are hidden beneath.

Advertising in America got twisted and bent when it became fashionable to read The Art of War.

The most commonly used words in marketing today are “target” and “objective.” Strange ideas for retailers, don't you think, when their goals are to attract and serve? Let's replace those two words, then, and see how it affects the heart.

Advertising consultants, instead of asking, “Who is your target?” why not ask, “Who are we hoping to attract?” Instead of asking “What is our objective? ask, “How are we hoping to serve?” Prepare yourself for strange and revealing reactions to these questions because while it's fashionable to spout about having “great service,” few want to truly serve.

Business people, do you want to attract multitudes? Develop the heart of a servant – one who truly loves – and you will quickly become beloved. The world has masters aplenty; it is servants who are in short supply.

I'm not the first to note how words and actions reveal the heart. Luke tells of a dawn two thousand years ago when Jesus walked grass still wet with dew. After choosing from among a great crowd of followers the twelve who would accompany him to the end, Jesus stepped forward and spoke to the waiting throng, “The good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart, and the evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart. For out of the overflow of his heart his mouth speaks.”

Now let's look at Jesus' actions – beginning with his choosing of the twelve – and see if they reveal his motives: The fact that none of them were leaders in the business community indicates that he wasn't planning to measure membership or attendance numbers, build a bank account or launch a political action committee. “Minister” was more of a verb in his day.

Flash forward to his final day in John 13: “… so he got up from the meal, took off his outer clothing, and wrapped a towel around his waist. After that, he poured water into a basin and began to wash his disciples' feet, drying them with the towel that was wrapped around him.” The twelve were aghast. Foot washing was like scrubbing a public toilet or scraping gum off the bottom of bus benches. “Do you understand what I have done for you?” Jesus asked them. “I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you.”

Consciously or unconsciously, each of us follows a hero. We model our actions after their actions and measure our success according to their values. Are you consciously aware of whose example you are following? Look quietly to your daily actions and you'll find your hero vividly revealed.

Sun Tzu wrote The Art of War five hundred years before Jesus felt the morning grass beneath his feet.

Somehow I doubt he ever read it.

Roy H. Williams

Marketing was easy in the old days. You had ABC, NBC and CBS, a local newspaper and half a dozen radio stations. That was it. There was no Fox, no WB, no cable channels, no FM radio and no such thing as a cell phone. You had to find a phone booth and a dime. When pay phones jumped to a quarter it was taken as a sign of the antichrist.

I'm talking about the 1970s.

Fax machines and VCRs did not exist for most of us until 1980. It took barely 10 years for them to become utterly indispensable and now they're becoming obsolete, kicked to the curb by email attachments, DVD machines and TiVo.

The future is accelerating toward us. Take your eyes off the hurtling horizon – even for a moment – and the world will pass you by.

It's time for you to get serious about a web site.

Yes, in that list of things that didn't exist in 1980, I failed to mention personal computers, the biggest world-changer of them all.

World-changing, let's talk about it.

Recently, one of our graduates sat down to dinner at the old Clark Gable estate with 4 other World Changers:

1. the president of a major television network

2. a recent candidate for the Presidency of the United States

3. the man whose name is attached to all the most spectacular hotels in Las Vegas

4. a money man whose name you would instantly recognize if I were to say it.

They gathered to discuss a project being headed by my friend. I hope to be able to tell you more about this project soon, as it potentially involves Wizard Academy.

Another of our graduates is directing the worldwide Research and Development efforts of the US government to defeat bio-terrorism. If he is successful, Anthrax, Ebola, SARS, AIDS and other infectious diseases will no longer be life-threatening. Let's pray that he succeeds.

A third graduate is the head of Pentagon News. I'm always fascinated to hear his perspective on world events.

But the graduates whose work is most likely to affect your personal life – the ones who can help you catch up to the future – are the Wizards of Web, Bryan and Jeffrey Eisenberg.

You know from recent memos that their book Call to Action became an international bestseller. Now, as a special favor to their alma mater, the Eisenbrothers have agreed to teach a world-changing 2-day event – Sept 8 and 9 – as a fundraiser to help build Engelbrecht House, the student mansion soon to be constructed on the campus of Wizard Academy. (No more renting of hotel rooms when you come to Austin!)

You need to attend this event. No other investment will propel you as fast into the future. And at just $2,200 it's the bargain of the century. Academy graduates (and honorary graduates – those who have attended my public seminars) pay only half. Wow. That's only $1,100. Read the details of this one-time-only seminar – Call to Action – under Course Descriptions at wizardacademy.org.

I wouldn't put it off if I were you.

Roy H. Williams

Sometimes I go to funny places in my mind. Do you ever go exploring?

Lately I've been imagining a world without oil. No oil for cars, no oil for 18-wheelers, no oil for jets. Not even any oil for construction equipment or ambulances. Same world, but smack out of oil. Can you see it?

The funny thing is that it will happen. When that day comes, we may or may not have harnessed a renewable source of energy, but run out of oil we most certainly will. What will the history books say of you and me?

The June 4, 2005 issue of The Economist tells us the Chinese are learning to drive. Last year they purchased more than 5 million cars, compared to the 17 million purchased by Americans. Next year they'll surpass the Japanese to become the second-largest car market on earth. And that's just the beginning. China's rumbling economic growth means that in just a few years she could buy 5 times as many cars as the US each year and consume as much oil as we currently use in half a decade.

And you thought the price of gas was high.

According to the most recent U.S. Geological Survey (2000,) there are 3,000 billion barrels of oil left in the world. Total oil production in 2000 was 25 billion barrels. So if world oil consumption increases at an average rate of 1.4 percent per year, the world's oil supply will not be exhausted until the year 2056. But that scenario doesn't consider the Chinese. If they punch the accelerator, our fifty-year supply could be gone in fifteen.

The internet is looking more and more vital, is it not?

I'm not trying to play Chicken Little here, “The sky is falling! The sky is falling!” My goal today is only to open the eyes of your imagination. There are lots of things to think that aren't being properly thunk, but if we all pitch in, we might be able to think them all. Here are just a few:

Did J.M. Barrie intend for Peter Pan's ticking crocodile to represent how Time devours our youth? And if so, how deep does the symbolism run in this 100 year-old story?

Jesus always “lifted his eyes toward heaven” when he prayed, so why do we always bow our heads and close our eyes?

If color is a language, which colors are the verbs? What constitutes a verb in the language of music?

Why do theoretical physicists not take the ideas of Julian Barbour more seriously?

If your life ended today, what would you regret you had left undone?

Sometimes it's good to go exploring in your mind.

You can never be certain what you'll find.

Roy H. Williams

Have you ever noticed how unhappy people always want to share their unhappiness with you? It may come in the form of a whine, a complaint, a rant, or sanctimonious “constructive criticism,” but come it most certainly will.

The thing to remember when an unhappy person begins spraying unhappiness is this: It's not really about you. It's about them. And the wounds they carry. So try not to internalize it.

Do you remember the Jewish father played by Roberto Benigni in Life is Beautiful? He illustrated the idea that happiness can be chosen in spite of unhappy circumstances; you are not a product of your environment. You are a product of your choices.

Even weirder than unhappy people wanting to share their unhappiness with you is the fact that happy people generally keep their happiness to themselves. Why are we like this?

I have a theory about leaving tips on tables at restaurants: the size of the tip isn't really an expression of your judgment regarding the quality of service you've received. It's an expression of your generosity, the bigness of your heart. It's not really about the waiter or waitress. It's about you.

This idea can be especially fun when you receive truly abominable service. That's when you can leave a tip that's totally over the top and then smile all the way to your car as you contemplate all the different ways the story might end:

1. The waiter, recognizing the tip as a gesture of love, pulls himself together and has a much-improved day, giving everyone exceptional service. Your ray of sunshine touches 276 lives before it fades into the memory of yesterday.

2. The waiter, misinterpreting the tip as proof that it doesn't really matter whether or not he does a good job, continues his slacker attitude and reaps the life of mediocrity he deserves. But sometimes, late at night, he is haunted by the memory of the strange day he received a 20 dollar tip for serving a 7 dollar sandwich. What was that all about?

3. The waiter, shamed by the monster tip he knows he didn't deserve, assumes it must have been meant for the cook. Your gift has now triggered a crisis of conscience. Will the waiter pass the tip along to the cook and grow as a human being? Or will he “steal” it and forever know himself to be a thief?

4. The waiter, desperately needing the extra cash, accepts the tip as a gift from God. Congratulations, you are now an angel, God's messenger, a finger of His divine hand.

5. The waiter, truly stupid, believes he deserves the tip and pockets it with bravado. Let him have his sad moment of glory. There won't be many like it in his life.

The bottom line is this: People need love. Especially when they do not deserve it. And in the words of Iome Sylvarresta, “Love isn't something you feel. It's something you give.”

Do something good today for a person who has done nothing to deserve it. Better yet, do something good for someone you don't even like.

I promise you'll have a better day.

Roy H. Williams

“We had all the momentum; we were riding the crest of a high and beautiful wave. So now, less than five years later, you can go up on a steep hill in Las Vegas and look West, and with the right kind of eyes you can almost see the high-water mark – that place where the wave finally broke and rolled back.”

You are free to use – or not use – words and phrases from that sad soliloquy at the end of a dream. But the song lyrics you are going to write won’t be about the end of the 60s. You are going to write a song about the end of a love affair.

Another group of possible words and phrases you might use popped into my head during a business trip to Las Vegas in 2010. I was passing through the casino as I headed back to my room after speaking to an auditorium full of strangers when I saw a pattern, thought a thought, and wrote it down before I fell asleep.

“Girls in black spandex pants, high-heeled boots and baggy leather coats punctuate Las Vegas. Vodka fumes trail like invisible puppies as they pass the dead-eyed, spent ones going through the motions of having fun without having any of it.”

But the most important part of this song that you – yes, you – are going to assemble from bits and pieces of these shattered memories will be the phrase that Brad Whittington scribbled down in 2012 as he was driving past the Mean-Eyed Cat, a famous dive bar.

That’s the hook, the recurrent chorus. “You’re just the one she hasn’t left yet,” will show up repeatedly as you write this song that some lucky singer is going to make famous. That singer will tour and sell T-shirts and sign autographs and be famous. But you and me and Brad are going to reach into our mailboxes and pull-out handfuls of songwriting royalties.

Did you know that singers and their bands get zero money when their songs play on the radio? The only people who make money from airplay are the songwriters.

That’s going to be you and me and Brad.

Bernie Taupin doesn’t sing or play an instrument, but he has collected more than 70 million dollars in royalties from the lyrics of songs that play on the radio each day.

Brad and I feel the musicians and singers should get some money, too, but that’s not how the system works. Oh, well. Maybe they’ll get rich selling concert tickets and T-shirts.

Or maybe they should learn to write song lyrics.

1. Don’t worry about whether your song lyrics make sense. You’re not writing an essay full of facts. You’re writing a song full of feelings.
2. Your song lyrics will need to have poetic meter, those wonderful rhythms created by the stressed and unstressed syllables of spoken words.
3. You must repeatedly use the phrase, “You’re just the one she hasn’t left yet,” and you have to use a few of the words and phrases contributed by Hunter S. Thompson and me. You can decide which phrases you will use, and you are free to add words and phrases of your own, of course.
4. Your song can be Rock, Yacht Rock, Folk, Country, Western Swing, Opera, R & B, Rap, Hip-Hop, Bluegrass, or some musical genre I’ve never heard of. Brad and I don’t care and Hunter S most certainly doesn’t.
5. You have to send your lyrics and an MP3 recording of your song, with or without musical accompaniment, to indy@wizardofads.com before midnight Sunday, April 30, 2023.
6. There is a distinct chance that no one will ever hear your song except for Indy Beagle and Brad and me. But we are all going to have a wonderful time and that’s something in itself, don’t you think?
7. Yes, I was serious about sending us a recording. We need to hear the rhythm and tempo and melody that you hear in your mind. You don’t need to write the music, you just need to sing it or have someone else sing it for you.
8. No one cares that you can’t sing. This isn’t about the quality of your singing. It’s about the lyrics and rhythm and melody you hear in your head. Someone has to sing your song lyrics and send it as an MP3 along with your lyrics in a Word doc. You will list the copyrights as belonging to yourself, Brad Whittington, and Roy H. Williams.
9. When you submit your song, don’t tell us the story behind the story. Your song has to speak for itself. Your lyrics need to break hearts, bring tears, and cause people to have vivid memories of things that never happened. It’s not about you. It’s about the listener.
10. Twelve or fifteen of the best song lyrics and recordings will appear in the rabbit hole and a full-color, hardback Chatbook of those songs will be made and sent to each of the twelve or fifteen people whose work appears in it.

Welcome to the big leagues. You’ll find additional instruction and inspiration in today’s rabbit hole. Indy Beagle will tell you how to get there.

Now as Barry White would say, “Write on, write on, write on.”

Roy H. Williams

NOTE FROM INDY: If you’re listening to the audio version of this memo, you’re going to have to go to MondayMorningMemo.com if you want to enter the rabbit hole. When you have arrived at MondayMorningMemo.com, look in the archives for the MondayMorningMemo for March 6, 2023. Open it, then click the photo of the Mean-Eyed Cat at the top of the page. That will take you to page one of the rabbit hole. Each click of an image in the rabbit hole will take you one page deeper. Hang on, it’s going to be a wild ride. – Indy Beagle

Wizard Academy alumnus Matt Mason has some profound thoughts on Disneyland, midlife, and churros. Matt, who since 2019 has served as the official state poet of Nebraska, is hoping that those and other introspections he shares in his latest book of poetry will touch readers and help fuel his ambition to earn a living writing, performing, and teaching poetry to a corporate audience. Turning a passion into a business is never easy, but Matt believes he can make it happen. This week, on a return visit with roving reporter Rotbart, Matt shares how he plans to land this rocket on the moon! Keep your eyes on the sky and your ears on MondayMorningRadio.com

When business is slow, the wise business owner wonders what might be wrong with his business. The average business owner thinks only that something is wrong with his advertising. As I said last week, I believe it was advertising salespeople who taught business owners to think this way, saying, “The secret is to reach the right people. You've obviously been reaching the wrong ones.”

But who, exactly, are “the right people” to buy a product no one wants?

David Ogilvy once asked, “Can advertising foist an inferior product on the consumer? Bitter experience has taught me that it cannot. On those rare occasions when I have advertised products which consumer tests have found inferior to other products in the same field, the results have been disastrous.”

William Bernbach echoed Ogilvy's statement. “Advertising doesn't create a product advantage. It can only convey it.”

But it was Professor Charles Sandage who turned Ogilvy's complaint into a manifesto: “Advertising is criticized on the ground that it can manipulate consumers to follow the will of the advertiser. The weight of evidence denies this ability. Instead, evidence supports the position that advertising, to be successful, must understand or anticipate basic human needs and wants, and interpret available goods and services in terms of their want-satisfying abilities. This is the very opposite of manipulation.”

Yet when traffic is slow, the accusing finger will usually point to advertising.

Great ads flow from great products just as poetry flows from deep feelings. Telling a writer to write a great ad for a less-than-great product is like commanding a pregnant woman to give birth to a red-headed child.

To know the power of the ads that I might write for you, only two questions need be answered:

1. How good are you at what you do?

2. How good are your competitors? (Yes, you are being compared to everyone in your category whether you accept it or not. This is why the Wizard of Ads partners never attempt to write ads for a client until they have visited that client's competitors.)

The writing of sparkling ads for a dull business is like putting lipstick on a pig. If advertising were all it took to grow businesses to their full potential, the faculty of Wizard Academy would not be so heavily invested in the development of New School sales training, Wonder Branding, internet Persuasion Architecture, Systematic Idea Generation, Online Video Introductions, Radio in the 21st Century, Blogging, and Public Relations.

Soon my partner Mike Dandridge will release his new book, The One-Year Business Turnaround: Breakthrough Marketing Without Advertising. In that book, Mike will reveal fifty-two tested techniques that helped him build his electrical supply company to more than one million dollars a month in sales, even though he was challenged by Home Depot on the left and Lowe's on the right. Sound like something you might want to read?

Yes, Wizard Academy is investigating growth techniques far beyond traditional advertising. Is it maybe time that your business did, too?

Roy H. Williams

For years, advertisers have attempted to target “the right customer” through carefully selected media vehicles. Mailing lists aimed at specific demographic, geographic and psychographic profiles have fallen short so often that a 3 percent conversion rate is considered a big success. Carefully selected TV shows and radio formats have failed to deliver equally as often. And now email opt-in lists are disappointing a whole new generation of advertisers.

Not surprisingly, it is media salespeople who are largely responsible for today's overemphasis on “reaching the right customer.” After all, if they told you the truth – that business reputations and advertising results are built on saying the right thing rather than reaching the right person – they would have no leverage to convince you that you need to reach exactly who they're trying to sell you.

In your next ad, try targeting through the content of your message rather than through demographic profiles.

There are four simple steps in creating a sharply targeted message:

1. Choose whom to lose. You can't really know who you're targeting until you can name who you're not targeting. Inclusion is tied to exclusion. The Law of Magnetism is that attraction can be no stronger than repulsion. In the following example, I'm choosing to lose bargain-hunters and posers. (Not that there's anything wrong with bargain hunters or posers. In another campaign, I might target them with great success.) When you're saying the right thing, you'll be surprised at how many people suddenly become “the customer you needed to reach.”

2. Gain their attention. If the reader/listener/viewer isn't with you, you're toast. We live in an over-communicated society whose attention has been fractured by too much media. So never assume that people will be paying attention to your ad. Assume instead that you must wrestle their thoughts away from powerful images and distractions that are tugging at their mind. “If the lowest price is all you're after, this isn't the camera for you.” That headline/opening statement attracts the quality conscious consumer to the same degree that it repels the bargain hunter. The only task remaining is for us to explain precisely why our camera is worth the premium price we ask.

3. Surprise them with your candor. Traditional hype and ad-speak make today's customer deaf and blind. They can smell hype and phony promises and they're turning away from them in greater numbers every day. So bluntly tell them the truth. Confess the negative or they won't believe the positive. “Another downside of this camera is that it's not the sleekest, prettiest one in its price class. No one is going to tell you how cool your camera looks. The upside is that it takes far superior pictures.”

4. Make it make sense. Believability is the key. Tell them how and why your product can deliver what it promises. “The prettiest camera in this price class has a shutter speed of 1/15th of a second. But the shutter speed of the ugly Canon PowerShot S500 is a superfast 1/60th of a second, allowing you to take fabulous photos in low-light situations. Your indoor photos will look rich and vibrant when all the others look dark and grainy. And your nighttime photos will make people's eyes bug out. Beautiful contrast and luminance, even without the flash. This camera can see in the dark. Take a picture of your lover in the moonlight. It will become your favorite photo ever. And that superfast shutter speed is also very forgiving of movement. That's why no one ever replaces their PowerShot S500. Go to your local pawnshop and see if you can find one. We're betting you can't. But you will see several of that “prettier” camera available cheaper than dirt. So if you're looking for a great price on a sleek-looking camera, that's probably where you should go.”

See what I mean about choosing whom to lose? Are you beginning to understand the power of candor?

I promise that targeting through copy works. But do you have the guts to do it?

Learn to target through candid copy and then you can have fun laughing at all the media reps who try to convince you that you've got to reach precisely the audience they're selling.

Roy H. Williams

If natural resources determined the wealth of nations, Brazil would be the richest country on earth and Japan would be the poorest. But resources have little to do with building a healthy economy.

Prosperity happens when the swimming pool installer sells four pools in one month instead of the usual two and says, “I'm going to buy myself three new suits and a big television.”

Then the TV salesman cocks his hat and says, “I'm going to dine out every night this week.”

The haberdasher, having sold 3 suits more than usual, says, “I'm going to buy my wife a piece of jewelry, give each of the kids a new toy, and then take them all out for a fine dinner.”

The next day the jeweler and the toy-store owner, each feeling good about the future, get measured for new clothes and make reservations for dinner on Friday night.

The restaurateur begins thinking about having a swimming pool installed.

Economic prosperity is rooted in desire and confidence – both of which are stimulated by advertising.

That's why Wizard of Ads, Inc. is planning to open an office in Afghanistan.

We Americans are good at convincing each other to buy stuff. It's what we do better than any other nation. Call us naïve, but my partners and I believe that better advertising can radically change the future.

Does your future need changing?

Get yourself to Austin, Texas, on June 17 for an all-day Free Seminar in lavish new Tuscan Hall on the campus of Wizard Academy, and if you can, try to stay the evening and watch the gaslights flicker to life in Chapel Dulcinea at sunset. It will be a day you'll never forget.

See you then.

Roy H. Williams

Are you one who believes the reliability of research is assured when the sample size is adequate and the respondents are properly qualified? If so, “research” will likely lead you to some tragic conclusions if it hasn't done so already.

The problem with most research is that it's done by mathematical types who have little appreciation of the nuances of language. Ask a witness, “How fast were the cars going when they smashed into each other?” and they will name a much higher speed than if they are asked, “How fast were the cars going when they made contact?” (This is not a speculative assertion. The full report can be found in Essentials of Human Memory by Dr. Alan Baddeley.)

What's missing in most survey writers is an understanding of the illogic that we humans call logic.

Neurologist Richard Cytowic was nominated for a Pulitzer in 1982. This is what he had to say in The Man Who Tasted Shapes: “My innate analytic personality had been reinforced by twenty years of training in science and medicine. I reflexively analyzed whatever passed my way and firmly believed that the intellect could conquer everything through reason. 'You need an antidote to your incessant intellectualizing,' Clark had once suggested, 'something to put you in touch with the irrational side of your mind.'… I had never considered that there might be more to the human mind than the rational part that I was familiar with. It had never once occurred to me that a force to balance rationality existed, let alone that it might be a normal part of the human psyche.”

When Cytowic began to study this “force to balance rationality” he learned: “…some of our personal knowledge is off limits even to our own inner thoughts! Perhaps this is why humans are so often at odds with themselves, because there is more going on in our minds than we can ever consciously know.”

“If a new soft drink came along that you thought tasted better than your current favorite, would you switch to it?”

“Which of these two colas tastes better to you?”

“Thank you for your opinion. You have been very helpful.”

But when New Coke was introduced, America hated it. We were outraged, You're messing with our heritage! New Coke wasn't a genius marketing ploy to remind us of how much we loved old Coke. It was a genuine screw-up, fueled by millions in research.

Joey Reiman, a founding partner of the BrightHouse Institute, (one of Coca-Cola's research partners) gave an interview to the New York Times on Oct 26, 2003. “Focus groups are ultimately less about gathering hard data and more about pretending to have concrete justifications for a hugely expensive ad campaign. 'The sad fact is, people tell you what you want to hear, not what they really think,' Reiman said. 'Sometimes there's a focus-group bully, a loudmouth who's so insistent about his opinion that it influences everyone else. This is not a science; it's a circus.'” The article went on to say: “Advertising's main tool, of course, has been the focus group, a classic technique of social science. Marketers in the United States spent more than $1 billion last year on focus groups, the results of which guided about $120 billion in advertising. But focus groups are plagued by a basic flaw of human psychology: people often do not know their own minds.”

Ask a person to speculate about what they would do in a particular circumstance and they'll tell you what they truly believe they would do. But when the actual circumstance comes upon them, they do something else entirely. My advice: Quit asking people what they think. Begin watching what they do. Ignore their words; study their actions.

Still not convinced that numbers are easily misinterpreted and misunderstood? In a recent Los Angeles Times article Peter Gosselin writes about economists who won the Nobel prize and then made poor personal investment decisions, sometimes even fumbling the Nobel prize money. He then took a look at the investment decisions of the faculty of Harvard University. His conclusion? The financial masterminds don't do any better than the average goober standing in line at the bowling alley.

Remember the days prior to the bursting of the dotcom bubble? Everyone was talking about “eyeballs” under the assumption that web traffic could easily be translated into dollars. “It's just a numbers game.” The Internet was ruled by computer programmers and numbers have long been the language of Wall Street. But any time the flaws and foibles and inconsistencies of humanity are removed from the persuasion equation and the chant begins, “Numbers don't lie,” engineers, programmers, researchers and investors will align themselves into a magnificent fool's parade. And then, when the bubble bursts because the fundamental assumption was wrong, they blame it on the introduction of “unforeseen forces.”

My partners Jeff and Bryan Eisenberg tried to warn the dotcom world, but no one in those days listened. Jeff and Bryan's heretical notion was that online shoppers are human beings and should be treated as such. “Remove the humanity from the data and you're left with nothing but dangerous digits.” Data worshippers pooh-poohed the warning. Today the Eisenbrothers are regarded as two of the preeminent consultants in the world of online marketing. In fact, if the sales numbers can be trusted, their new book, Call to Action should make the Wall Street Journal bestseller list this week and maybe even the New York Times as well.

Let's hope that numbers, this time, can be trusted.

Roy H. Williams

Features and benefits, features and benefits, features and benefits. We've polished our pitches to such a degree that we've dimmed our abilities to persuade. The customer is only half listening because the inner self is asking, “What are they not telling me?”

Those who have heard my 90-minute presentation about the ongoing evolution of Western communication style are familiar with the problem:

1. The fine art of Hype has been perfected and refined.

2. Western culture has been submerged in it, held under until every last pore of our souls has been saturated.

3. Consequently, we've developed an immunity to “ad-speak,” the language of hype.

4. But we don't rage against it. We see the half-truth of hype as a fact of life.

5. That's why we're ignoring it.

6. And we're ignoring it in greater numbers every day.

Do you want to surprise Broca, gain the attention of your customer and win back your credibility? Learn to name features, benefits, and downside. Trust me, the customer is already trying to figure out the downside. Why not just tell them? It's the best possible way to insulate yourself from the backlash when they finally figure it out for themselves.

This powerful “tell the truth” technique is easily perverted into just another oily sales trick when the downside you name isn't the real one. As Francois Duc de La Rochefoucauld observed 350 years ago, “We only confess our little faults to persuade people that we have no big ones.”

I'm saying confess the big ones. Knock your customers flat with your candor. Yes, it will cost you a few sales you might otherwise have made. But it will make you far more sales than it costs you.

People aren't as stupid as you think.

Roy H. Williams

“…And after the fire came a gentle whisper. When Elijah heard it, he pulled his cloak over his face and went out and stood at the mouth of the cave. Then a voice said to him, 'What are you doing here, Elijah?'” – from the 1st book of Kings, chapter 19

When Elijah focused on his own strength, his knees got weak, his hand began to tremble and his heart melted away. But as long as he kept his vision focused on his mission, he was filled with vitality and confidence and did miraculous things.

Where is your vision focused?

I have endured much questioning about The Quixote Collection at Tuscan Hall. People say, “Wasn't Don Quixote a delusional madman and a laughingstock? Why would you be taken with such a one?”

Here is my answer. As long as Don Quixote's heart was filled with Dulcinea he overcame impossible odds. It was only after his friends convinced him Dulcinea did not exist that his heart shriveled within him.

Each of us needs Dulcinea, a sense of mission and purpose. For without it, there can be no adventure.

An itinerant preacher from Nazareth said, “If your vision is focused, your whole body will be full of light. But if your vision is unfocused, the light that is in you will be darkness. And if the light that is in you is darkness, how great is that darkness!” One of the ways Mathew 6:22 can be interpreted is this: “If a mission consumes you, your life will be filled with optimism, creativity and stamina. But if no purpose fills your heart, the echo of its emptiness will fill your mind with a mournful song.”

I believe that millions flounder and whine and are depressed because they refuse to sell their lives to something bigger than they are. They are sad because they have no purpose. Stephen Crane spoke of the power of purpose this way:

A man saw a ball of gold in the sky;

He climbed for it,

And eventually he achieved it —

It was clay.

Now this is the strange part:

When the man went to the earth

And looked again,

Lo, there was the ball of gold.

Now this is the strange part:

It was a ball of gold.

Aye, by the heavens, it was a ball of gold.

– passage 35 from The Black Riders and Other Lines (1895)

Your heart, my friend, is the size of a stadium. If you try to fill it with small things – a new car, a vacation, a promotion at work, a bigger home, a stock portfolio – a mournful echo will fill your life. But if you fill your stadium with all of humanity and search for ways to make their lives better each day, you will find yourself in the right place at the right time, doing the right thing in the right way. Serendipity will come to stay.

Do you have a purpose outside yourself?

Are you climbing for a ball of gold?

Roy H. Williams

When your business category is dominated by a single brand and all the other brands put together don't equal them, it's time to create a counter-brand.

Counter-branding – business judo – is rare and dangerous. But when you're overwhelmingly dominated, what have you got to lose?

Prior to the creation of their “Uncola” counter-brand in 1967, 7-Up had survived for 38 years as a lemon-lime soft drink with the slogan, “You Like It. It Likes You.”

Yippee Skippy call the press, a soft drink likes me.

As in Judo, the secret of counter-branding is to use the weight and momentum of your opponent to your own advantage. In other words, hook your trailer to their truck and let them pull you along in their wake.

The steps in counter-branding are these:

1. List the attributes of the master brand. In the case of 7-Up, the master brand was “Cola: sweet, rich, brown.” Everything else was either a fruit flavor or root beer and all of those put together were relatively insignificant. “Cola” overwhelming dominated the mental category “soft drinks.”

2. Create a brand with precisely the opposite attributes. To accomplish this, 7-Up lost their lemon-lime description and became “The Uncola: tart, crisp, clear.”

3. Without using the brand name of your competitor, refer to yourself as the direct opposite of the master brand. 7-Up didn't become UnCoke or UnPepsi as that would have been illegal, a violation of the Lanham Act. But when you're up against an overwhelming competitor, you don't need to name them. Everyone knows who they are.

Let's look at a current example: Starbucks. Notice how I didn't have to name the category? All I had to say was “Starbucks” and you knew we were talking about coffee. That's category dominance.

In the February 2005 issue of QSR magazine, Marilyn Odesser-Torpey writes about Coffee Wars, opening with the question, “Starbucks will certainly remain top dog among coffee purveyors, but who is next in line?” A little later we read, “Many of the competitors in the coffee segment are Starbucks look-alikes; if you take the store's signage down, it would be hard to tell the difference.”

Traditional wisdom tells us to (1.) study the leader, (2.) figure out what they're doing right, (3.) try to beat them at their own game. This strategy can actually work when the leader hasn't yet progressed beyond the formative stages, but when overwhelming dominance has been achieved, as is currently the case with Starbucks, such mimicry is the recipe for disaster. Are all competitive coffee houses forever doomed to occupy the sad “me-too” position in the shadow of mighty Starbucks? Yes, until one of them launches a counter-brand.

To determine what a Starbucks counter-brand would look like, we must first break Starbucks down into its basic brand elements:

1. Atmosphere: quiet and serene, a retreat, a vacation, like visiting the library. Bring your laptop and stay awhile. They've got wi-fi.

2. Color Scheme: muted, romantic colors. Every tone has black added.

3. Auditory Signature: music of the rainforest, soft and melodious

4. Lighting: subdued and shadowy, perfect for candles or a fireplace.

5. Pace: slow and relaxed. This is going to take awhile, but that's part of why you're here.

6. Names: distinctly foreign and sophisticated. Sizes include 'Grande' and 'Venti.' (No matter how you pronounce these, the 'barista' will correct you. It's part of the whole Starbucks wine-bar-without-the-alcohol experience.)

Counter-brands succeed by becoming the Yin to the master brand's Yang, the North to their South, the equal-but-opposite 'other' that neatly occupies the empty spot that had previously been in the customer's mind.

Here's what a Starbuck's counter-brand would look like:

1. Atmosphere: energetic and enthusiastic. Running shoes instead of bedroom slippers. Leave the car running because we won't be here long.

2. Color Scheme: bright, primary colors such as are found in athletic uniforms, against a background of white or off-white.

3. Auditory Signature: anything with a driving beat, faster than a resting heart-rate. Dance music.

4. Lighting: dazzling, like in a sports arena.

5. Pace: driven by the music, on the move. Caffeine!!!

6. Names: straightforward and plain. Descriptive, rather than pretentious.

HOW IT MIGHT SOUND ON THE RADIO: Most people think to get a fast cup of coffee you have to settle for fast-food coffee …or worse…convenience store coffee. And to get a good cup of coffee you have to stand in line for 20 minutes at some snooty coffeehouse where things can't just be medium and large, but have to be 'Grande' and 'Venti.' At JoToGo we serve really good coffee, really fast. We're the original drive-thru espresso bar serving all your favorite premium coffee drinks at lightning speed. So when you're on the go, get a JoToGo. No snooty attitude here, just fabulous coffee fast.

No matter how big a brand might be in the public's mind, there's always an open spot for the exact opposite. When the circumstances call for it, be that opposite. Create a counter-brand.

Roy H. Williams

People have said for decades, “Word-of-mouth is the best kind of advertising. That's the best kind: word-of-mouth.” You hear this so often when you sell advertising that my friend Bob Lepine used to joke about opening The Word of Mouth Advertising Agency. He said he was going to hire people to sit at bus stops and ride the elevators in tall buildings and say to people, “Have you tried that new restaurant over on Fifth Street? It's GREAT!” The funniest part of Bob's idea is that it probably would've actually worked.

The power of the buzz – word-of-mouth advertising – lies in its credibility. But the only way to create buzz is to rock a person's world so hard that they can't help but talk about it to their friends.

I'm going to try to do that today.

Ray Bard of Bard Press, the publisher of my bestselling Wizard of Ads trilogy, looked at the new hardback book about to be released by Wizard Academy Press and wrote me an email. (I was walking out the door to meet Ray for lunch when a boxful of advance copies arrived from the printer. On impulse, I grabbed one for Ray.) These comments by email were completely unsolicited:

Roy

Great to see you and catch up yesterday. And, thanks for the new Wizard Academy Press book. I usually refrain from providing comments about books after they're published (I've made enough mistakes myself over the years) but there is one issue that may deserve attention.

When I got home last night I gave the book a quick look. It felt good in the hand and the inside contents looked good. Although the title sounded like a political book and provided no information about the content, I know that it can get by as it is. The other, more difficult issue, is the price. When I first saw the $13.95 I thought it was a mistake but noticed it was printed in two places. The last time 300 page hard cover business books sold for $13.95 was probably 30 years ago. The retail price is a statement of what you think the value of the book is. When most similar business books are selling for twice as much today, you can see the message this sends.

If the publisher is pursing a strong merchandising strategy with lots of face out retail space I recommend pushing the retail into the “value” category. Unless you have a new distribution effort, I would not recommend it for this book. And, the $13.95 is way beyond “value” pricing.

For what my opinion is worth, I would have priced it at $30. and sold it at $20 for special customers. I think you can see the difference in psychology.

Again, I regret bringing this up now, but I know the book will be used in the company's marketing efforts. And, as it is, the price sends just the opposite message you want.

Ray

Ray Bard is America's most successful publisher of business books. He is responsible for putting two of my books on the Wall Street Journal bestseller list and one on the New York Times list, so I listen carefully to what Ray says.

He's right. Thirteen ninety-five is way too cheap for a 314 page hardback containing this kind of detailed information about how to make online marketing actually work. These pages are chock full of little-known techniques for improving online marketing results. More than a dozen Fortune 500 companies have paid the authors huge amounts of money to learn this stuff. That's why our plan all along was to price the second printing at 25.95. But this first printing exists only to create a buzz. That's why we're giving you 2 additional copies for each one you buy at just $13.95. We know you'll give them to friends. We know your friends will be rocked. We know your friends will talk about it to their friends. It's all about the buzz and this book contains some fabulous honey. By the way, shipping is free if you live in the US, so you'll have a grand total of only 4.65 per book in each of your 3 hardback copies.

Wizard Academy Press is gambling that the information contained in this book will give you a heady buzz and be worth mentioning to your friends.

I'll let you know in a few weeks how the experiment turns out. In the meantime, why not get 3 copies headed your way?

Roy H. Williams

Standing inside Chapel Dulcinea recently, I looked up to see the great ribs beneath the roof beams above me and thought, “Jonah in the belly of the whale.” Do you remember the story? It's only four short chapters, a 5-minute read. The next morning, Princess Pennie went back to Dulcinea with me and we sat together while I read the book of Jonah aloud. Somehow, it felt like the right thing to do.

Let me summarize it for you: Running from God, Jonah boards a ship headed in the opposite direction from the place he knew he was supposed to go. (Have you ever rebelled, brazenly, from what was expected of you by someone else?) And then a storm came. (Somehow they always do.) Thrown overboard, Jonah is swallowed by “a great fish” in whose belly he reevaluates his priorities and finds his soul again. Jonah's time of reflection and prayer in the belly of the beast is a marvelous thing to read. The fish then vomits Jonah unceremoniously onto the beach. (Ever been unceremoniously barfed by circumstances following a storm that hugely kicked your ass? Me too.) Now this is where the story gets interesting to me: Jonah, having survived the crisis, finally does what he should, but with a really bad attitude. The tale ends with Jonah being unbelievably petty and small, a pale shadow of the giant he had been during his time in the belly of the beast.

Evidently, I'm not the only person who can go from high thoughts to low thoughts in a very short period of time. And neither are you.

Interestingly, Jonah's pendulum swing was the inverse of Elijah's. Whereas Jonah went from high thoughts in the belly of the beast to low thoughts during his mission, Elijah went from high thoughts during his mission on the top of Mount Carmel (where he called down fire from heaven to burn up an offering to God in front of a huge crowd of witnesses,) to low thoughts immediately after his triumph. “Elijah was afraid and ran for his life. When he came to Beersheba in Judah, he left his servant there, while he himself went a day's journey into the desert. He came to a broom tree, sat down under it and prayed that he might die. 'I have had enough, LORD ,' he said. 'Take my life; I am no better than my ancestors.' Then he lay down under the tree and fell asleep.” When Elijah awakened, he went to spend some time in a cave at Mount Horeb. Read the 19th chapter of 1st Kings and you'll recognize another belly, another whale.

Every caterpillar must go into the cocoon if she will spread her newfound wings.

Some will find Chapel Dulcinea to be the belly of the whale, a place for reflection in times of crisis. Others will find Dulcinea to be the cave at Horeb, a place to regain their balance after riding an emotional rollercoaster. For thousands of young couples, Dulcinea will be the cocoon from which will emerge the two-winged butterfly of marriage. But always it will be a place of transformative change.

No one but Pennie knew that I was contemplating the book of Jonah and the value of reflection, so it came as a soft surprise when Bryan Eisenberg forwarded to me a quote he thought I might find interesting: “The Internet radically redefines a person's psychological relationship to time and space. Attention is riveted on what is tangible, useful, instantly available; the stimulus for deeper thought and reflection may be lacking. Yet human beings have a vital need for time and inner quiet to ponder and examine life and its mysteries… Understanding and wisdom are the fruit of a contemplative eye upon the world, and do not come from a mere accumulation of facts, no matter how interesting.” – Pope John Paul II, Sunday, May 12, 2002

I hope you don't mind that I chose to share with you something less tangible and instantly useful this week.

Come see us.

Roy H. Williams

Hi Roy,

Thanks for the mention in the MMM today. It never ceases to amaze me the buzz something like that creates.

Reading it also reminds me of the other conversation that took place at the same time, when you and Dave were talking about how a chef reduces the sauce to intensify the flavour and how that process can be related to writing. That conversation adds clarity to today's argument raging in the US about 60's vs. 30's.

Cheers

Steve

The “other conversation” mentioned in this email from my partner Steve Rae was with Dave Martin, the Academy graduate and friend in whose restaurant we were dining. Following my discussion of paint with Bob Shrubsall, Dave and I began discussing how impact grows when it's concentrated into less of the carrier vehicle. This is the secret of perfume, reduction sauce, and the edge of an axe. But just as sharpening an axe or simmering the water from sauce takes time and patience, editing words from descriptions is not a task for the anxious or twitchy.

Easy reading is damned hard writing.

Think of this principle as The Law of Refined Essence.

I've always been a fan of David Ogilvy and J. Peterman, two of the great masters of evocative description, and both were advocates of long and colorful copy. These men were legends in their day but I believe that day is fading. The rules of communication are shifting beneath our feet.

Haven't you noticed?

We're entering an era of stimuli bombardment, visual ecstasy, sound bites, the micro attention span. A committed reader is a rare bird.

Over-communication has accelerated beyond critical mass and the resulting explosion has fragmented the public mind.

So the new rule is to say what you've got to say. And say it hot.

Speaking to authors, Elizabeth Spencer said, “Don't overwrite description in a story – you haven't got time.” I believe her advice rings truer today than ever.

What do you believe?

Roy H. Williams

Go into the quiet security of your mind, and you will know that you value one of these more highly than the other four.

1. Government
2. Business
3. Science
4. Family
5. Deity

“American rates of religious affiliation have plummeted to their lowest point in the past 73 years. And nowhere are they lower than in knowledge-industry hubs like Silicon Valley, where high-skilled jobs are growing the fastest. If religion is in decline, I wondered, then what are Americans worshiping now? What has become our new religion? For many professionals, the answer is work. Work provides the identity, belonging, meaning and purpose that faith traditions once did.”

– Carolyn Chen, NY Times, June 4, 2022

“For thousands of years, our ancestors gazed at the world around us—the people and animals, the mountains and seas, the sun, moon and stars—and saw the divine. As the 19th Psalm puts it, ‘The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament shows his handiwork.’ Even Isaac Newton saw a universe filled with purpose. In his masterwork, the Principia, he wrote: ‘This most beautiful system of the sun, planets, and comets, could only proceed from the counsel and dominion of an intelligent and powerful being.’ Science advanced by leaps and bounds in the centuries following Newton, and scientists dialed back much of the God-talk. Many thinkers suggested that the universe runs like a mighty clockwork. Perhaps a creator was needed at the beginning, to set it going, but surely it now runs on its own. Einstein, who often spoke of God metaphorically, took a different tack. He rejected a personal deity, but saw a kind of pantheism—roughly, the identification of God with nature—as plausible.”

– Dan Falk, Scientific American, July 27, 2021

At one end of this spectrum, Communism believes that citizens should collectively own the means of production, distribution, and exchange which allocates products to everyone in the society. Karl Marx proposed a classless society in which everything would be shared by everyone.

At the other end of the spectrum, Libertarianism says, “We, the members of the Libertarian Party, challenge the cult of the omnipotent state and defend the rights of the individual.” [LP.org) Ayn Rand famously proposed, “If government would just get out of the way, individual self-interest would create a better society!”

To have confidence in government – or in the absence of government – is to believe in people. To have faith in people is Humanism. Is that where you have put your faith?

“People create value and do good things when they have a profit motive.”

“Capitalism creates jobs and provides a better lifestyle for everyone who participates. It is a virtuous cycle.”

“Business people are problem solvers.”

J.G. Ballard was enthusiastic about living in a technological society. He said, “Science and technology multiply around us. To an increasing extent they dictate the languages in which we speak and think. Either we use those languages, or we remain mute.”

Napoleon Hill echoed J.G. Ballard. “Whatever the mind of man can conceive and believe, it can achieve.”

But Thomas Schelling, winner of the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences, disagreed with Napoleon Hill, saying, “The one thing a person cannot do, however brilliant they are, is write up a list of things that would never occur to them.”

I like Thomas Schelling.

Perhaps I am oversimplifying this, but my general feeling is that when we do a thing intuitively, we call it art. When we do it systematically, we call it science. And our love of science seems to be growing exponentially.

“We are awash in numbers. Data is everywhere. Old-fashioned things like words are in retreat; numbers are on the rise. Unquantifiable arenas like history, literature, religion and the arts are receding from public life, replaced by technology, statistics, science and math. Even the most elemental form of communication, the story, is being pushed aside by the list. The results are in: The nerds have won. Time to replace those arrows in the talons of the American eagle with pencils and slide rules. We’ve become the United States of Metrics.”

– Bruce Feiler, NY Times, May 16, 2014

My own opinion echoes that of Tom Robbins, who said, “Romanticism and science are good for each other. The scientist keeps the romantic honest and the romantic keeps the scientist human.”

We will now continue our examination of the major categories of Beliefs.

Robert Frost said, “Home is the place where, when you have to go there, They have to take you in.”

Edna Buchanan said, “Friends are the family we choose for ourselves.”

Anthony Bourdain advised, “Be open to a world where you may not understand or agree with the person next to you, but have a drink with them anyways. Eat slowly. Tip your server. Check in on your friends. Check in on yourself. Enjoy the ride.”

Perhaps you feel as Rabbi Jonathan Sacks did. He said, “My life has been made by three or four, maybe half a dozen, friendships with people who believed in me more than I believed in myself.”

And of course, we all agree with Kahlil Gibran. “And let your best be for your friend. If he must know the ebb of your tide, let him know its flood also. For what is your friend that you should seek him with hours to kill? Seek him always with hours to live.”

My friend Akintunde Omitowoju is a programming genius, one of the few in the world who might be in the same inventive class as Steve Wozniak. Akintunde emphatically agrees with A.W. Tozer, who said, “The trustworthiness of God’s behavior is the foundation for all scientific truth.”

In the opening chapter of Genesis, the only information we’re given about the creation of our universe is, “God said, ‘Let there be…'” And then God continued to say “Let there be this, and let there be that,” until everything existed that needed to be.

Theoretical physicists call that moment The Big Bang. These same theoretical physicists – since the spring of 1995 – have been fascinated with a version of string theory called M-theory. In 2010, Steven Hawking wrote, “M-Theory is the only candidate for a complete theory of the universe.”

Michio Kaku believes M-Theory to be, “so concise that its underlying formula would fit on a T-shirt.”

In essence, M-theory tells us that Time is made of tiny loops of 6-dimensional energy vibrating at a specific frequency. Likewise, Space, Gravity, Matter, and Light are made of similar loops of energy vibrating at their own, specific frequencies. According to string theorist Brian Greene, these loops of energy are so small that if an atom were enlarged to the size of our solar system – with the sun as the nucleus and Pluto as the nearest orbiting electron – a single loop of energy would be the size of a small tree.

Brian Greene calls our universe, “a silent symphony of string.”

So if Hawking, Kaku, Greene and all the other string theorists are correct, it seems perfectly reasonable to see our space-time continuum as nothing but the continuing echo of the voice of God.

In the first chapter of John’s Good News we read,

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; (the Word) and without him was not anything made that was made…”

And then John drops the bombshell:

“And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us.” Wow. If this can be believed, the force that went out from God – his Word – continues to vibrate as our space-time continuum.

In the 17th chapter of the book of Acts, we read, “In Him we live and move and have our being.”

What I have shared with you today is personal. It is not religiosity. It is not codified, step-by-step religion. And it is most certainly not the fearful, angry, anxious posturing of misguided political parties since the First Crusade of 1095.

What I have shared is nothing more than my private understanding of the backstory of that person in whom I have placed my faith.

Roy H. Williams

PS – “As a general rule, I would say that human beings never behave more badly toward one another than when they believe they are protecting God.” – Barbara Brown Taylor

Michael Kaeding had no idea how to run his family business when his father unexpectedly passed away. “I had no preconceived notion of the way things were supposed to be done,” Michael recalls. “We just started to naively solve problems, and that was the magic.” Today Michael is the CEO of a company that designs, builds, and rents apartments. His naivety allowed him to perfect a process that saves 50% of what other residential developers spend. Listen and be amazed as Michael tells roving reporter Rotbart how he plans to solve America’s housing shortage and affordability crisis. It’s all happening right now at MondayMorningRadio.com

People who try to stay “on the cutting edge” tend to see everything as new. But the thing that has been will be again. And that which currently is, has been, long before our time.

If this observation seems familiar to you, it's probably because you remember it from a book written a few thousand years ago. Solomon went looking for the meaning of life and the essay he wrote about his journey, Ecclesiastes, opens with a similar observation about the cyclical nature of things.

I call such observations Laws of the Universe and I depend on them to make my clients rich. Sounds like a book title, doesn't it? The Wizard's Laws of the Universe? Perhaps I'll write it someday.

Right now I'm looking at a business card I've been carrying in my wallet since late autumn, 2000; Pennie and I were in Stratford, Ontario, while the Bush-Gore “hanging chad” debate raged in Florida. No one was sure who had been elected president. So at dinner in the basement of Fellini's, my partner Steve Rae casually asked, “So what do you think will happen if your boy gets elected?”

My reply was detached and instant. “We'll be at war within a year.”

Stunned, the table went quiet until Dave Martin, our host, set down his fork and asked, “Why?”

“Never put a Texan in the White House,” were the eight short words of my answer. Then, looking across the table at Bob Shrubsall, I said, “They tell me you know more about the science of paint than anyone I'll ever meet. Is that true?” Bob, in the understated way that is typical of Canadians, shared a little of his lifelong obsession with pigmentation and how it had led him into a specialized course of higher education that culminated in several college degrees and a career in research and development.

“So what makes one paint different from another?” I asked.

This question obviously energized Bob, so I pulled out a pen and began writing down what he said; “Paint, any paint,” he said, “is composed of only 4 things: pigment, vehicle, additives, and resin.”

Funny thing. Advertising is like that, too.

The pigment of an ad is its color, tone, temperament or style. It's what makes us recognize the ad as part of a specific campaign. Think of this “ad pigment” as brand essence. Most ads today are evocatively pale due to a lack of pigment.

The vehicle of an ad is the media which delivers it; newspaper, television, radio, outdoor, direct mail, internet, yellow pages and word-of-mouth are all vehicles of message delivery.

The additives of advertising are the specific message points it hopes to deliver.

The resin of an ad is what makes it stick in your mind. Surprising Broca and adding a Third Gravitating Body are just two methods of adding stickiness. Ultimately though, your ad's resin is the salience of the message as measured by the central executive of Working Memory in the dorsolateral prefrontal association area of the brain's left hemisphere.

Yes, there are laws of the universe. And one of them is that lots of things are like paint. Advertising is like paint. Reputations are like paint. It pays to understand paint.

Half the people reading this memo were likely irritated by the hyper-generalized nature of the 8-word statement I made at dinner in the basement of Fellini's. “It's more complicated than that, dammit! To say 'never put a Texan in the White House' is just shallow and simplistic and childish and irresponsible.”

Yeah, you're probably right.

But we did invade Afghanistan 10 months later.

Roy H. Williams

A few years ago, your customer could compare you only to your competitor down the street. But information gathering and comparison shopping have since become effortless, thanks to the internet. Tens of millions of us are gathering and comparing info 24/7 in the comfort and seclusion of our own homes.

But we're not “your customer,” right?

I recently spoke to an audience of 1600 businesspeople at a conference in Las Vegas. Just before I walked onstage into the spotlight, my host whispered into my ear, “It would probably be better if you didn't make any references to the internet, because this audience is almost exclusively 55 and older.” I smiled and nodded at him just as the man at the microphone said “Roy H. Williams” and I walked out from behind the curtain to meet my fate.

Taking center stage, I raised my hand and asked, “How many of you have used a search engine in the last 7 days to research a purchase that you were considering?” At least 90 percent of the hands in the room were instantly raised. I looked offstage and shot a smile to my host who was staring bug-eyed at the ocean of fingers.

But I suppose none of those people were “your customer,” either.

To get in step with the times, you must begin seeing the internet as an information directory at your customer's fingertips, because I can assure you that's how your customer sees it.

But unlike yesterday's yellow pages, this new information directory is consumer reactive, offering sights and sounds and detailed information. “To heck with letting your fingers do the walking. Let your fingers trigger the adventure.” Today's new directory can deliver streaming video of your best salesperson making his best presentation on his best day, directly into your customer's home. It can answer all your customer's questions and calm their unspoken fears. But no salesman is going to schedule an appointment with you to make sure you're “in the book.” This is a call you have to initiate on your own.

The times, they are a'changing.

Or maybe I'm wrong. Maybe it's enough to tell your customer, “Call or come into the store before closing time and our friendly staff will be happy to answer all your questions.” Yes, perhaps “your customer” has lots of free time and nothing better to do with it. Perhaps things aren't changing at all. Perhaps the old methods of marketing will always work.

But then I am reminded of C.S. Lewis, who said: “The safest road to hell is the gradual one – the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without turnings, without milestones, without signposts.”

Yeah. That's it. Just keep on doing what you've always done. I'm sure it will all work out.

Roy H. Williams

The last line in most TV or radio ads is usually a “call to action,” right? Especially if the ad was produced locally:

“Hurry. These prices won't last long.”

“Act Now. Offer expires soon.”

“You must be present to win.”

We say these things because we're trying to create a sense of urgency. We want to see customers respond immediately, so we yank the chain of self-interest. But the public is growing tired of having its chain yanked. And for this reason, ads that attempt to create a sense of urgency are becoming passé. We're developing an immunity to ad-speak.

From the Great Depression through WWII, any product with the courage to advertise relentlessly was assured a place in the national consciousness. Mass media was cheap and all of America could easily be reached by it. You had three TV networks, a local newspaper and a small group of AM radio stations. Take your pick.

Then we tumbled into the 60s and advertising got creative. Along came the 70s, FM radio arrived and right behind it, cable TV.

Babies born in 1980 emerged into a plastic world of flashing lights and shallow hype. Cartoons like the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles were interrupted by ads for the Popeil Pocket Fisherman and the amazing Veg-O-matic. “It makes mounds and mounds of julienne fries! But wait! There's more!” Disco music and line dancing and riding the mechanical bull. Pop like a flashcube, baby. Then in 1983, Michael Jackson swept the Grammies and Madonna leapt onto the charts with Material Girl. “We are liv-ing in a material world. And I am a material girl.”

Fast forward a quarter century: Never has a generation had so much to do and so little time. We're drowning in recreational opportunities. The Saturday morning cartoons of childhood blossomed into their own round-the-clock cartoon network and the nightly news has become a series of non-stop news channels. Comedy has its own unending comedy channel, movies their own 24-hour movie channel and department stores have morphed into a theme park of superstores known as Power Centers where we can watch the retail giants slug it out for our discretionary dollar: Circuit City vs. Best Buy. Linens'n'Things vs. Bed, Bath, and Beyond. Lowe's vs. Home Depot, OfficeMax vs. Office Depot, and PetsMart vs. Petco.

What is a citizen to do?

Those jaded infants of 1980 are turning 25 this year and they bring with them a new sensibility: Use technology to block out a too-much world.

1. Digital Video Recorders allow us to skip TV commercials.

2. Satellite radio and iPods allow us to hide from radio ads.

3. Video games allow us to run from reality as we withdraw into an online world unreachable by modern advertising.

MMORPGs (Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games) like EverQuest and WarCraft are a movie that never ends. The reality hook is that you are connected with other people who know you only as you have chosen to be known. Think of it as the ultimate costume party.

Did you know that you can type a text message on the keys of your cell phone that will instantly appear on the cell phone of a friend? This “instant messaging” is slow and laborious, but millions do it as a way of showing courtesy to their friends. “Ring the phone when your message can't wait, send a text when it can.” Non-interruption is a high value among the emerging generation and they're beginning to spread an appreciation of it to their Baby Boomer parents as well.

Bottom line: Our growing immunity to ad-speak means that the believability of ads that attempt to trigger urgency must be linked to the credibility of your desperation. So how do you think these “Hurry! Hurry!” lines are going to work in the future?

“Prices so low we can't say them on the air!”

“We won't be undersold!”

“Be one of the first 200 people through the door and receive a free gift!”

The marketplace is changing far more quickly than is advertising.

That's why I'm here; to help you get in step with today's consumers. Do it and move ahead of the curve to where the sky is bright and the air is sweet.

Let me know if you're interested.

Roy H. Williams

Author of the Wall Street Journal and New York Times bestselling Wizard of Ads trilogy

I wrote three memos to you this week, but decided not to send the first two. The first one, We Are Sancho Panza, is the dancing safari into symbolic thought that I promised you in last week's memo. It begins, “Who can explain our four-century attraction to Don Quixote? The book is hard reading and dull, full of inconsistencies, and confusing. A little like the Bible. And yet Quixote is the second most widely-read book on earth; second only to… yes, the Bible.” Powerful and flexible symbolic thought includes all forms of metaphor, simile and corollary. Its function is to relate that which is not understood to that which is understood. Even as the Psalmist wrote in Psalm 42, “deep calleth unto deep…” symbolic language calls to the unconscious; deep waters to deeper still.

I decided not to send you We Are Sancho Panza because it might have been misconstrued as a spiritual ambush. Some might even have called it religious. It definitely travels beyond the boundaries I impose on these Monday Morning Memos, so don't click that link unless you really want to go there. You have been warned.

The second memo I wrote but chose not to send was some very specific advice about radio advertising called “How to Make a Fabulous :30 from the Average :60.” But I decided to save those seven simple steps to deliver at an event I'll be doing in Dallas in May as a gift to my friend, Eric Rhoads, in honor of his 50th birthday.

So having written two memos to you and deciding to send neither, I wandered over to Academy Hall to peep in at a guest lecture in progress. There, on our mammoth projection screen, it read: “What would you attempt if you knew you could not fail?” An interesting question, it immediately triggered a deeper one: “What would you attempt if you knew nothing you did would ever work out?”

The first question urges you to dream big. The second, to be truly committed.

What is worth doing even if you can't succeed? Is there a mountain worth climbing even if there's no hope of ever reaching the top? Think about it. Standing on the top of the mountain is a moment, supposedly the moment “that makes it worth it all.” Makes it worth all what? A lifetime of disconnection, alienation and misplaced priorities? The world's saddest person is that tragic has-been who speaks incessantly about his or her shining moment long ago. Do you really want to be the woman who “used to be” Miss America? Or the man who “used to play” professional sports?

No mountain climber ever stays long on the summit. But the brevity of these visits isn't because someone drove them off to take their place. They leave because there is nothing more to do. The movie is over. The credits are rolling. Holding an empty popcorn bucket and a soft-drink cup, they go looking for a trash can and a bathroom.

Susan Ertz once wrote, “Millions long for immortality who don't know what to do with themselves on a rainy Sunday afternoon.” Life, if you will, is that rainy Sunday afternoon. What are you going to do with it?

I'm talking about embracing a commitment to something far bigger than your own small and petty desires.

Commitment is not to be found in brave talk, bold resolution, or dramatic gesture. And she will not be measured quickly. Strong and silent, Commitment steps into the light only in those dark and quiet moments when it would be easier to creep, unseen, away.

How deep is your Commitment to what you're doing with your life? I ask only because I care.

And it's never too late to change.

Roy H. Williams

“And all shall be well and All manner of thing shall be well When the tongues of flame are in-folded Into the crowned knot of fire And the fire and the rose are one.” In this strange passage from Little Gidding, poet T.S. Eliot links the mental image of a rose to the image of an infolded knot of flame. We see the connection; yes, a rose does look something like a knot of fire.

Much has been written about intuition and creativity. Most of it is wrong.

Allow me to explain; Intuition is merely pattern recognition, a principal function of the right hemisphere of your brain. Centered in that wordless realm, intuition whispers, “I've seen this movie, or one similar to it, so I think I know how it ends.” But your right brain is without word-language, so this thought must emerge in your consciousness only as a hunch, a gut feeling, a precognition, an inexplicable insight. When such insights flow unrestricted from the right brain to the left and then out through the tip of a pen, they become powerful, poetic language, such as that of T.S. Elliot above. When from the tip of a brush, fine art. And when from the point of a draftsman's pencil, a new invention.

Intuition and art, indeed all “creativity,” is based upon seeing the link between two dissimilar things that have no obvious connection.

Gutenberg connected coins to books and invented the printing press. The link between them: duplication. “Gosh, if a coin die will stamp an image onto countless pieces of metal to make coins, couldn't the same be done with letters of the alphabet to make the pages of a book? All I would need is something to hold the movable letters in place that could then be easily lifted up and pressed down. A wine press! I'll use the plate of a wine press to hold the letters!” And the world was changed that day.

Your left brain is the home of sequential, logical, analytical thought – business thought – always seeking to forecast a result; “What is the next step? How do I get to the next level? What would be correct?” For those familiar with the Myers-Briggs instrument, left-brain preferences are identified by the S and J designations.

Your right brain is the place of complex, fantastical abstract thought, ever seeking to find a pattern. (Obviously the N and P preference in Myers-Briggs terminology, though to my knowledge the MBTI people have never acknowledged these preferences to be rooted in Dr. Roger Sperry's brain lateralization. Dr. Sperry's findings on the two hemispheres of the brain and their respective functions earned him the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1981.) When the right brain begins to out-shout the left, we begin seeing connections and patterns that aren't really there. Ever see the Russell Crowe movie, A Beautiful Mind? Badda-bing, badda-bang, a right brain goes out of control and now you've got a genius weirdo on your hands. (Chances are you know at least one person who fits this description.)

Symbolic thought is the key to discovery. We'll talk more about it next week. Unless, of course, the beagle in my brain gets a whiff of something more interesting and then arooo! aroo-aroooo! we're off and running. That Russell Crowe character got nothin' on the beagle.

Yours,

Roy H. Williams

Getting confidence and keeping confidence – emotional muscle – is like getting and keeping any other muscle; it just requires daily exercise.

But where does confidence come from? Is it merely a feeling – the product of an optimistic attitude gained through positive thinking rituals learned at motivational seminars – or is it something more substantial?

According to Baltasar Gracian, confidence comes from authority, “…and the highest authority is that which rests on an adequate knowledge of things and long experience in different occupations. Master the subject matter and you will come and go with grace and ease and speak with the force of a teacher; for it is easy to master one's listeners if one first masters knowledge. No sort of abstract speculation can give you this authority; only continual practice in one occupation or another. Mastery arrives from an action done often and well… Authority originates in nature and is perfected by art. Those who attain this quality find things already done for them. Superiority itself lends them ease and nothing holds them back: they shine, both in words and deeds, in every situation. Even mediocrity, helped out by authority, has a certain eminence, and a little showiness can make everything come out right.”

Keys to confidence:

1. Do your homework. Know what you're talking about. Study, prepare, experiment, then experiment some more. Become an expert. Prepare true answers – not canned responses – for the questions you'll probably never be asked.

2. Tell the truth. You can't have real confidence when you know you're lying. A lie that makes you a dollar today will cost you a hundred dollars tomorrow due to the erosion of your own confidence. When you don't know the answer, say, “I don't know, but I'll find out and get back to you,” and then do it for the building of your own confidence even if you suspect the person has utterly forgotten your promise. The confidence you gain in yourself will make the whole exercise worthwhile. There's that word again; exercise.

3. Be a Little Bit Showy. Most people are average, and average is always boring. Experts, due to their deep knowledge of the subject and the ease with which they speak of it, are free to be entertaining. And the response you get to your performance will only increase your confidence.

Baltasar Gracian, by the way, lived three and a half centuries ago but his advice remains on target because some things never change.

Roy H. Williams

This year marks the 400-year anniversary of the publication of Don Quixote, so I seized the opportunity to spend some hours in the study of 1605. (Arooo! Aroo-Aroooo!) And as all such beagle runs will do, this one led to a delightful surprise in the form of one 'Baltasar Gracian,' a Spaniard who was 4 years old when Don Quixote was published and 15 when Cervantes died.

As an adult, Gracian was rival to Niccolo Machiavelli, author of The Prince, and his writings are the rich, sweet antidote to the bitter sting of Machiavellian code. Gracian's interpreter, Christopher Mauer, describes him this way; “In Gracian's world, no rules, no instructions, no set of [7?] habits lead directly to success. Rules are inflexible; no book of instructions will ever compete with the randomness of human activity; and any habit or pattern of behavior makes us predictable and therefore vulnerable to others: it is easy to shoot the bird that flies in a straight line, or defeat the person who always plays his cards in the same manner… For Gracian it is a melancholy fact of life that fools outnumber the intelligent and a large part of their foolishness lies in an inability to move beyond appearances to what lies within. Funny, subtle, loyal to his friends and a lover of natural beauty, Gracian is far more delightful company than his Jesuit records suggest.” Yes, Gracian was a Jesuit priest who stayed in trouble with his uptight superiors.

Here are a few examples of his anti-Machiavellian wisdom:

“The eyes of the soul are drawn to inner beauty, as those of the body are to outer.”

“The French have always been gallant, and this was the path that led Louis XII to immortality. Those who had insulted him when he was Duke of Orleans feared his succession to the throne. But he turned vengeance into gallantry with these inestimable words: 'You have nothing to fear. The King of France does not avenge the injuries done to the Duke of Orleans…'”

“It takes subtlety to turn a defect into a distinction. Be first to confess your faults and you'll have the last word: this is not self-scorn but heroic boldness. Unlike what happens when we praise ourselves, self-criticism can make us seem nobler.”

“Some come home from their travels as uncouth as they departed. Those of little depth make little use of worldly observation. Ambrosia was not made for the taste of fools, and no such knowledge is found in redneck bastards, who never stir from the here and now.”

Okay, I'll admit I substituted “redneck bastards” for Gracian's original invective, but only because I thought it fit the paragraph. By the way, I have nothing but deep respect for the agrarian lifestyle and I revel in the earthy wisdom of farmers. Singer-songwriter Willie Nelson is not a redneck bastard. Eric's father, (the fictional TV character from That 70's Show) Red Forman, is. The Redneck Bastard is every man of closed-minded platitudes and belligerent, self-righteous certainty who has neither the will to understand his adversary's heart nor a hunger to learn the truth. The Ku Klux Klan exists because of Redneck Bastards.

Thank you for not being one.

Roy H. Williams

You had friends and laughter, adventure and romance. Remember the halcyon days of your youth? But then the friends went away, the laughter faded, the adventure ended and the romance was over.

It was time to go to work.

Do you ever feel like you're wearing ankle irons, condemned to row forever with the other galley slaves in the dim life below ship's deck? “I too have had my dreams: ay, known indeed the crowded visions of a fiery youth which haunt me still.” – Oscar Wilde

One of the happy accidents of Wizard Academy is that students often rediscover who they were when they were young. They come to the academy to become better salespeople and scientists, journalists and educators, authors and ministers, business people and bar bouncers, ad writers and artists and we certainly make them those things. But somewhere along the way, students remember how to love their lives again and the dream-seed that fell into the ground during the dark days of winter breaks through the warm soil of spring to shout its message to the sky.

“Work is about a search for daily meaning as well as daily bread, for recognition as well as cash, for astonishment rather than torpor; in short, for a sort of life rather than a Monday through Friday sort of dying.” – Studs Terkel

I want you to come to Austin on April 23. It's a Saturday. Tuscan Hall, our auditorium, is now complete except for the flagstone plaza and water features that will surround it and we'll certainly have those done before you get here. Likewise, construction is ahead of schedule for the April 23 opening of Chapel Dulcinea, the small, cliff's-edge structure that symbolizes the academy's heart and provides the fuel for its dreams.

What are the dreams of Wizard Academy? To build a school of discovery in the arts and sciences: in short, the Harvard of a brighter tomorrow. Our students, partners, and adjunct faculty are already changing the world of business through more persuasive ad writing, 'New School' sales training, and revolutionary internet solutions. Additionally, my partner Sonja Howle will soon be taking the reigns of our Art Marketing Workshop to help artists in every discipline – all over the world – make a better living from their work because we are convinced their work is essential. We'll soon be adding a new course in visionary architecture taught by one of America's greatest living architects who, miraculously, has agreed to participate in our April 23 event to explain in detail all the symbolism and feeling that is woven into the very architecture of the school. Prepare to be amazed.

Now I need you to take a slow breath and sit down, okay? Because I'm getting ready to share with you a part of the dream that could easily sound delusional: It is our conviction that this school will exist and thrive for at least 500 years. That's why we've been careful to use only such construction materials and techniques that will withstand the wear of centuries.

Every organization closely tied to the identity of its founder dies shortly after its founder's passing. We don't want that to happen. That's why the academy is now a non-profit organization governed by a board of directors beyond my control. It must become independent of me long before I'm gone. I will not build a monument to myself. Look closely at any of my bestselling Wizard of Ads books and you'll see that my name isn't on the cover of any of them. This was my choice. My plan from the beginning has been only to kick open closed doors and point toward the horizon for an army of world-changers who will follow. Will you be counted among them?

The Academy's students, faculty and directors want the school's powerful, inside-out way of thinking to be passed like a torch from generation to generation, providing the fuel, the research and the inspiration to create constant improvement forever in every field of endeavor. And they're doing everything it takes to make sure it happens.

Are we crazy? Maybe.

Come be crazy with us.

Roy H. Williams

A brief summary of this episodeNiche marketing was born the day a clear-eyed realist chose to dominate a subcategory when the master category seemed too high a hill to climb. “Instead of trying to become a major retailer of home furniture, I'll become the king of affordable dinettes. Instead of making a run at used cars, I'll dominate used Corvettes instead.”

Focused specialization makes sense, and in some circumstances it's exactly the right thing to do. But beware the temptation to think too small. Climbing molehills is easy. And when the time comes to plant your flag on top, you'll find there's already a convenient hole in it for you. Long live the king.

But then what have you really got?

Early in my consulting career most of my advice centered around the idea of focusing on a niche, a subcategory, a genre. My first client was a jeweler who deeply loved rubies, emeralds, sapphires, tourmalines, kunzites, garnets and all manner of colored gemstones. Even better, he was a nationally recognized expert on them. So what better strategy could I recommend than suggest that his store specialize in colored gems? Thank God he didn't agree to it. If Woody Justice had taken my advice that day, he would have quickly become King of a Molehill instead of spending a delightful two decades becoming something much bigger than either of us dared dream.

Sad it is to live your whole life without ever having a dream, a hope, a goal. Sadder still is to have a goal, but never achieve it. But saddest of all is to have a goal, achieve it, and then have nothing to do.

I'm not being poetic or playing with double meanings. I mean exactly what I said. But I'm not the first, John Steinbeck said it this way: “In the dark the other night I wrote in my head a whole dialogue between St. George and the Dragon. Very close relatives those two. They are eternally tied together – actually two parts of one whole… So St. George must always kill the dragon and it must be repeated because if the dragon were finally killed, there would be no St. George – only a lonely man looking for something to do.”

In the year 410, the man in North Africa who would be remembered as St. Augustine of Hippo wrote, “Why does it say in the holy Psalm, 'The hearts of them shall rejoice that seek the Lord, that seek His face forever?' Why does it not say, 'The hearts of them shall rejoice that find the Lord?'” Augustine ponders this awhile, then offers us his conclusion: “Things incomprehensible must be so investigated.” In other words, Augustine believed we are magnetically drawn and thrilled by what is too big for us. It makes our hearts rejoice.

I think I agree. And that's why next week I'm going to share with you a dream too big for me alone. Heck, maybe it's too big for all of us together. But it makes my heart rejoice and it may do the same for you.

We'll see.

Roy H. Williams

I was writing an upbeat and instructional memo to send you today called Confidence: Where to Get It and How to Keep It. But it's going to have to wait. This other thing just wouldn't turn me loose until I wrote it down and sent it to you.

Have you ever had a concept slap you in the face with every twist of your consciousness? The slap-fest began for me on Friday, when my chief media buyer asked to have a long discussion with me about television. Juan Guillermo Tornoe rarely requests my time. We had a long heart-to-heart about TV ads and then went home for the weekend.

Upon checking my email that evening I learned that FCC chairman Michael Powell – the man who had tried to deregulate TV and radio so that a tiny handful of people could control what we see and hear – had finally stepped down. I slept a little more peacefully that night.

I awoke the next morning, hopped into my truck to run some errands and stuck a new CD into the player, having no idea what to expect. I'd not heard of the group Green Day, but bought the CD impulsively when Amazon.com had suggested it. I had no idea what sort of music to expect. Here are the lyrics to the first song:

“Don't wanna be an American idiot.

One nation controlled by the media.

Information age of hysteria.

It's calling out to idiot America…”

Again the pervasiveness of TV had popped up like a prairie dog the moment I lifted my glance to the horizon.

Upon my arrival home the rotating quote that greeted me when I logged on to wizardacademy.org was, “All television is educational television. The question is what is it teaching?” – Nicholas Johnson

More than 700 rotating quotes and that's the one I get. Hmm…

Just then Pennie, having no idea how often I'd already been confronted with the idea of television's pervasive place in our lives, hung up the phone and mentioned that her sister called to say she felt Dr. James Dobson had finally stepped over the line into the land of the paranoid with his accusation that TV's SpongeBob Squarepants is teaching young children to be homosexuals.

I wasn't much interested in the squabble between JamesDob and SpongeBob. The thing that snagged my attention is that Pennie and her sister had been discussing a TV newscast that reported what a media minister had said another TV show might be doing to children.

The next morning Pennie handed me the newspaper's Parade insert because the cover story was an article by literary giant Norman Mailer. I don't ever read the paper, so when the Princess finds something in it she thinks I might want to see, she saves it for me. You guessed it. The great Norman Mailer was railing against TV. “If the desire to read diminishes, so does one's ability to read. The search for a culprit does not have to go far… If we want to have the best of all possible worlds, I believe that television commercials have got to go. The constant interruption of concentration of TV advertising not only dominates much of our lives, but over the long run is bound to bleed into our prosperity… Let us pay directly for what we enjoy on television rather than pass the spiritual cost on to our children and their children.”

Halfway through Mailer's rant my email dinged for my attention. It was a note from a friend I'd not heard from in awhile. There's no way Dan knew what I was pondering. I swear I'm not making any of this up. Here's his email:

“Two years ago I watched my last local TV newscast. I was fed up with hearing about murder after murder. I was beginning to believe, as many viewers must, that our society was out of control, with everyone shooting everyone on every street corner. It's not true. Not even close. I feel better about my country since I turned off the local news, which is really “crime news.” You know. . . “if it bleeds, it leads.” But, sadly, a lot of people seem to accept the idea that being informed about a murder across town is relevant and somehow important to know. It's not. It's mind poison.” – Excerpt from RV Travel, Issue 144, EDITOR'S CORNER by Chuck Woodbury

What do all these disjointed thoughts add up to? Only this: television's magnetic hold on us seems to be on the mind of a lot of people right now. And I, for one, am going to ponder this awhile and come to some sort of conclusion. And then I'll probably take some sort of action. What it will be, I have no idea.

There's room in this think-tank for you, too, if you want to jump in.

See you in the deep end.

Yours,

Roy H. Williams

Ten years ago, scientists discovered “a geometric, jewel-like object at the heart of quantum physics.”

This jewel-like object is called the amplituhedron (cool name, right?) and it, “dramatically simplifies calculations of particle interactions and challenges the notion that space and time are fundamental components of reality.” *

A theoretical physicist at Harvard, Jacob Bourjaily said that when using the amplituhedron, “The degree of efficiency is mind-boggling. You can easily do, on paper, computations that were infeasible even with a computer before.”

But that’s enough of that. The real question behind all this is, “What is real?”

Questions about the nature of reality, and the reality of nature, that echoed in the hearts and minds of humans for a long, long time.

What is Reality? Mathematicians have structured long equations to explain it. Theoretical physicists have developed theories to predict it. Philosophers have made names for themselves by speculating about it.

But I’m not asking them.

I’m asking you.

What are the most real things in your life?

Indy Beagle is going to collect your answers and task the Tiny Tribe into using the most beautiful pieces and phrases in song lyrics that he will publish in the rabbit hole a few weeks from now.

You can reach Indy at indy@wizardofads.com

Your answers don’t need to be scientific, philosophical, or universal.

They need only be true… to you.

We're looking for that jewel-like object that sparkles in your heart and twinkles in your eyes and glitters on the surface of the sea.

The sea is your unconscious mind.

We're looking for the song that has not yet been sung.

Aroo,

Roy H. Williams

PS – Tom T. Hall said the most real things in his life were, “Little baby ducks, old pickup trucks, slow-moving trains… and rain.”

*Natalie Wolchover

Four obstacles prevent most people from becoming persuasive communicators, whether in print, in front of an audience, or on video. And those obstacles are SNEAKY obstacles. That’s the conclusion of Michelle Gladieux (Glad-ee-oh), a communication consultant with 18 years of experience teaching at the highest levels. “The ability to dazzle an audience is far more accessible than most people believe,” Michelle tells roving reporter Rotbart, “but you’ll need to take some uncomfortable risks to succeed.” Are you willing to risk a few minutes to elevate your speaking abilities by several notches? All aboard! It’s time for MondayMorningRadio.com

It was Christmas Eve, 1513. In just two more years, 78 year-old architect Giovanni Giocondo would be dead, having filled Europe with magnificent buildings and bridges that continue to stand unweathered in the year 2005. During that night he wrote a note to his friend, Allagia Aldobrandeschi. The note, like his other work, remains:

I am your friend and my love for you goes deep. There is nothing I can give you which you have not got, but there is much, very much, that, while I cannot give it, you can take.

No heaven can come to us unless our hearts find rest in today. Take heaven!

No peace lies in the future that is not hidden in this present little instant. Take peace!

The gloom of the world is but a shadow. Behind it, yet within our reach is joy. There is radiance and glory in the darkness could we but see – and to see we have only to look. I beseech you to look!

Life is so generous a giver, but we, judging its gifts by the covering, cast them away as ugly, or heavy or hard. Welcome it, grasp it, touch the angel's hand that brings it to you. Everything we call a trial, a sorrow, or a duty, believe me, that angel's hand is there, the gift is there, and the wonder of an overshadowing presence.

Life is so full of meaning and purpose, so full of beauty – beneath its covering – that you will find earth but cloaks your heaven.

Courage, then, to claim it, that is all. But courage you have, and the knowledge that we are all pilgrims together, wending through unknown country, home.

And so, at this time, I greet you. Not quite as the world sends greetings, but with profound esteem and with the prayer that for you now and forever, the day breaks, and the shadows flee away.

I send you these thoughts today because my own mind is cloudy and damp and I need to shout some sunshine in. I've been crowded upon by too many fast people in wraparound sunglasses and leather pants, each with a crocodile smile and a toothy proposal they assured me would be “mutually beneficial.” It took me long to make them go away.

Like Giocondo, I want to build things that will stand the test of time. Businesses for my clients and their families. An academy of higher learning for the world. A true and lasting friendship with you, even though we may never meet except through these brief notes on Monday mornings.

Thank you for spending these minutes. My greatest wish is for you to have the strength to lay your hand upon those things Giocondo urged Aldobrandeschi to take.

Yours,

Roy H. Williams

Which do you think would work better, the brilliant execution of a flawed strategy, or the flawed execution of a brilliant one?

In business, it's the flawed execution of a brilliant strategy that usually wins the day.

Most advertising professionals are unwilling to question a client's strategy because they're afraid of losing the account. So they happily pretend that “good writing, scientifically selected colors, powerful pictures and reaching the right audience” is all that's needed to make money in America.

Piffle and Pooh. Give me average writing, bland colors, no pictures, the wrong people and a strong strategy and I'll have to rent a trailer to haul my money to the bank.

It's hard to tell a powerful story badly. But it's easy to tell a weak story well. I've never seen a business fail because they were “reaching the wrong people.” But I've seen thousands fail because they were saying the wrong thing. Please hear me correctly. These catastrophic failures weren't saying the right thing badly, they were saying the wrong thing well. It's amazing how many people become “the right people” when you're saying the right thing. Believe it or not it's advertising third, customer delight second, strategy always first.

At the heart of every moneymaking ad campaign is a powerful strategy, a story that needed to be told. But not every business has such a story. When your ads aren't working, return to the core, look at first causes, heal the central wound. No writer, no matter how brilliant, can dress up a bad idea and sell it to intelligent people. It usually takes more than good writing to pull you back from the brink of disaster.

How did you get to the brink of disaster in the first place?

Business owners wander near the brink when they:

(1.) fail to have an attractive core strategy.

(2.) pretend their competitors don't matter.

(3.) believe that “reaching the right people” is the secret to success.

(4.) worry about “increasing traffic” more than delivering a wonderful customer experience.

Give me a business that delights its customers and I can write ads that will take them to the stars. But force me to write ads for a business that does only an average job with their customers and I'll have to work like a madman to keep that business from sliding backwards. Unless they have no competitors.

I'm amazed by business owners who assume that every successful business deserves to be successful. The truth is that a business with weak competitors is going to succeed no matter how bad their advertising or how consistently they disappoint their customers. Could good advertising save a bad restaurant? No, but these restaurants succeed in spite of bad food and no advertising when they're the only restaurant in the hotel. Strategy triumphs again.

Roy H. Williams