Wizard of Ads Monday Morning Memo

What makes us America? If you were to name a single incident in American history that you feel was America’s finest hour, what would it be? Would it be a moment of patriotic sacrifice?  “I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country.” – Nathan Hale, [Sept. 22, 1776] A moment of relentless determination? “Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!” – Admiral David Farragut...

“Do you see a man skilled in his work? He will stand before kings.” – Proverbs, ch. 22   Stand before kings? Sounds great! But how does one get “skilled in his work?”   American children were taught for 100 years that all we had to do to be successful was listen, take notes, remember what we were told and repeat it accurately when asked.   Americans call this sil...

If you’re reading this sentence, it’s because the headline (A.) startled you by its intrusive, personal nature, (B.) irritated you by its assumption that God exists, (C.) intrigued you because you never really thought about it, or (D.) touched a pre-existing suspicion or belief that hides in your heart. Headlines – including the subject lines of emails and the opening sentences of speech...

How does one reconcile these two famous proverbs? “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” That first platitude would argue that pre-emptive action is a waste of time and resources; “Leave well-enough alone.” The second platitude says quite the opposite; “A stitch in time, saves nine.” Which is true? Stanislaw Lec said, “Proverbs contradi...

A Brief Examination Into the Health of Your Marketing STEP 1:  What percentage of your sales volume comes from repeat or referral customers? These customers are driven to you by past satisfaction. Don’t read any further until you’ve decided on a percentage. Give it your best guess. STEP 2:  What percentage of your sales volume is triggered by your location and its exterior signage? These...

If you’re a man, you will definitely have a midlife crisis. When it happens – and it can happen a number of times – you can let it lift you to the next level, or you can let it unravel your life.   Wizard Academy’s Dr. Richard D. Grant, a clinical psychologist, was chatting with a group of adult students one day while his microphone was still recording. I transcribed a bit of what h...

The Key to Getting Attention. A Guaranteed Cure for Writer's Block. In an over-communicated society, predictability is the enemy of effective writing.   A recent Yankelovich study tells us that Americans are confronted by more than 5,000 selling messages per day – radio and television and magazines and newspapers and billboards floating on an ocean of store signage, posters, point-o...

Why America Needs Wizard Academy According to the U.S. Census, our nation is home to 5.91 million business owners whose businesses have fewer than 100 employees. If the American dream is to survive, these small businesses must thrive. The success of Wal-Mart and Google is not enough.   Wizard Academy is a business school – not for big corporations – but for companies operated by the...

I look at Vivian Maier and remember Jane Hathaway, Mr. Drysdale’s scholarly secretary on  The Beverly Hillbillies.   Vivian was born in France in 1926. We don’t know how or when Vivian came to America, but at age 11 she began working in a New York sweatshop.   She learned English by sitting in movie theaters, alone in the dark.   Alone in the dark. That pret...

Uptight vs. Anything Goes  “Proverbs contradict each other. That is the wisdom of a people.” – Stanislaw Lec   EXAMPLE 1.  “Win the heart and the mind will follow. The intellect can always find logic to justify what the heart has already decided.”  In other words, speak to the right brain – the heart – if you will persuade. EXAMPLE 2.  “Specifics are more believable t...

But the Sun Shows Us the Way. “Success is a snowflake,” she said. I was talking to the princess of my world, doing my best to ignore the day that waited impatiently outside our door. I had shown her the photo of Jane DeDecker’s  Old Man and the Sea  and told her the back story of Teddy Roosevelt’s famous statement,   “It is not the critic who counts; not the man who p...

Ray, I agree with what you said. Determination must be fed or it will fade. Commitment, on the other hand, is settled, secure, irrevocable. Costs are no longer counted. You’ve heard me say many times that one of our society’s most costly mistakes is this misbegotten belief that passion produces commitment. America’s high divorce rate testifies to our error. Commitment, I believe, produces passion....

A Look at Personification and Brandable Chunks Gold, for thousands of years, has been the world’s only truly secure investment. The economy ebbs and flows, like the tide. It always has. It always will. But gold is like the Rock of Gibraltar. Safe. Secure. Indestructible. If all the gold in the world were melted into a single cube, that cube would be only 22 yards per side. Gold is astoun...

The single biggest mistake made in face-to-face selling is the seller’s reluctance to name the price.  When your customer asks, “How much?” the next syllable to leave your lips should be the first digit of a number. “But you don’t understand. That’s just not possible in my business. We have to gather some information before we can name a price.” Piffle and pooh. This is not true. “O...

a peek, a glimpse, a conclusion It is dangerous to write sentences that require the reader to think. Frankly, you would be safer to blindfold yourself and walk in front of a Taliban firing squad wearing a Jesus Loves You T-shirt. Here’s an example of dangerous writing: “Amnesia is not knowing who one is and wanting desperately to find out. Euphoria is not knowing who one is and not caring. Ec...

Adolphe Monticelli has been forgotten by all but the most devoted art historians, but his legacy will live eternal through the work of Vincent Van Gogh, Paul Cézanne and a whole generation of French Impressionists. Monticelli may rightfully be called,”The World’s Most Influential Painter That No One Has Ever Heard Of.” Thomas Jefferson was alive when Monticelli was born and Teddy Roosevelt ha...

“ Thoughts are the threads that bind us to deeds. Deeds are the ropes that bind us to habits. Habits are the chains that bind us to destiny. “ – Inscription carved on the West Wall at  the Palace in Maygassa   My friend Don Kuhl says, “All change is self change” and the first things we must change are our thoughts.   Harvard’s beloved Frances Frei echoes Don Kuhl, “To chan...

And It All Comes Together We love that moment when a divergent anomaly becomes the missing piece of the puzzle. The key that unlocks a mystery. The “Eureka!” of an inventor. The punch line of a joke. We hunger to see disparate elements resolve into a coherent pattern. Tedious teachers tell us the answers. Astounding teachers make us see the answers for ourselves; Clic...

Today’s memo was recorded 12 years ago.  Paul Compton had a wife and four daughters, and in later years, a fourteen-year-old son added himself to the dinner table. That son was me. My own mother was a great cook and she loved me like crazy, but Mom had to work full time and there was a lot to do in the evenings, so I fell into the habit of showing up at Paul’s house every night around su...

One Bad, Two Good Ads are (1.) category-focused,  (2.) product-focused, or  (3.) client-focused. The good thing about category-focused ads is that they’re portable; anyone in the category can use them.  The bad thing about category-focused ads is that they don’t distinguish you from your competitors,  because anyone in the category can use them.  I’ve been told t...

BONUS: The Wizard’s Prediction of What’s About to Happen Is there any part of your business you’d like to improve? Listen to me:  You won’t improve what you don’t measure. Here’s how to get the ball rolling: Step One:  Identify, clearly, what you’re trying to make happen. Step Two:  Determine how progress might be measured. (This is the hardest step by far.) Step Three: &n...

Old ideas are carried by old words. New ideas are carried by new words. Old words keep you inside the box. New words help you escape it. If you want to remain inside the box and fall behind the pack, just keep talking about target customers, demographics, gross impressions and unique selling propositions. Do you want to keep up with the times, get ahead of the curve?...

from our correspondent in St. Petersburg, Russia A Roy,  Ogilvy’s St P. office is a client of ours, only there are a tonne of project managers there, and we had really only one contact person, with a few other managers who knew vaguely about us. I was chatting to the lovely Katya, my contact person, on skype one day. Joked something about her using our corporate plane if she needed it; she sa...

I was talking to an old friend. He asked the usual questions. “Family okay?” “Everyone is great.” “Business good?” “Busier than ever.” “But are you having fun?” He asked the question as any child of the ‘60s would ask it. The anthem we sang as young men was, “If It Feels Good, Do It.”  Live fast, die young, leave a beautiful corpse. Life is kicks, fun, adrenaline:  Jimi Hendrix, Jan...

“Numbers don’t lie” is what people say when they defend their faulty logic. Their math is always flawless. The problem is that they gathered the wrong numbers.   But the wrong numbers always look so right.   Wizard Academy teaches its students to gather different information and use it to make different decisions. This is what we mean when we say Wizard Academy is a nontraditio...