Wizard of Ads Monday Morning Memo

Most of us are out of balance and suffering for it. We’re either too pragmatic or too romantic. The pragmatist never stops to smell the roses. “What’s the use? Just get the job done, move onward and upward. Winners never quit and quitters never win.” The romantic smells the roses and gets misty-eyed. “Roses are so meaningful. Let’s sit down and talk about our feelings and listen to some music and...

At first glance it would appear that Vince Poscente and I stand for exactly opposite things. Vince is all about speed. His mantra seems to be,  “You don’t have to choose; you can have it all. And you don’t have to wait, you can have it now.” Yes, at first glance it would be easy to write Poscente off as just another preacher of gimmicks and hype. But that would be a mistake. Vince challenges...

I learned last week why I’m no good at making small talk. The realization blew my mind. Pennie and I were sitting in the sun room looking at our computers when she asked, “Did you get the email from Janet?” “Yes.” “Should I answer it or will you?” “You, please. I have no idea how to respond.” Pennie smiled her knowing smile and began to type for both of us. Our friend Janet had sent us an email “j...

A check arrives in my office and a one-day meeting is scheduled. The business owner arrives on the appointed day. This is going to be tough. It always is. To earn my money, I must take the client through 5 steps that are easy to understand but hard to do. This is the process my staff and I use to grow little companies into big ones. But our magic can’t happen until we’ve extracted these answers fr...

“When Death snatches your friend you walk into the darkness a little, calling his name, waiting to hear his voice in answer. It is a lonely and quiet time.” – Roy H. Williams, October 29, 2011, 5 days after the death of Woody Justice 2007:  I’m sitting in the grand ballroom of the Mandarin Oriental hotel in New York, surrounded by hundreds of people in tuxedoes and evening gowns. So this is a...

Are You Willing to Look Inside Yourself, Friend? Do you ever  ask yourself hard-to-answer questions like, “What am I trying to make happen?” “How will I measure success?” “What is holding me back?” Rarely do we question our own objectives. Even more rarely do we question our emotions. People whose feelings ride close to the surface are quick to use words like “passion.” My good friend Marley...

Advertising begins only after you win the attention of your target, a difficult thing to do in this overcommunicated world. May I suggest you do it like the Great Ones? When you’re ready to tell your story,  choose an angle  of approach. Then  frame the scene.  Decide what to include, what to  leave out: Specifically, leave out: 1.   anything the listener al...

The mind is full of clever ideas. But few of them will actually work. My friend John Young says, “A smart man makes a mistake, learns from it, and never makes that mistake again. A wise man  finds a smart man  and learns from him how to avoid that mistake altogether.” But not everyone who makes a mistake gains useful knowledge from the experience. The average person explains away their f...

Brad Lawrence has been a client of my firm for 12 years. During that time, he’s grown his business beyond all expectations. Mostly because he’s got guts. Recently, Brad was looking at a sort of charm bracelet for his jewelry store. He could buy the base bracelets for 6 dollars apiece if he ordered at least 500. That would be $3,000. But his real investment would be another $30,000 for the countles...

When I was in high school, it was considered a big deal if you could control a steel ball under a piece of glass with a couple of buttons that flipped little flippers. The steel ball would bounce from side to side and bells would ring and lights would light up. I could never quite see the point. There must be something wrong with me. I’ve since learned that it’s fashionable to be skilled at someth...

I’ve said many times, “Most ads aren’t written to persuade, they’re written not to offend.” This goes back to chapter one, “Nine Secret Words” in my first book,  The Wizard of Ads.  Do you remember the nine secret words? “The Risk of Insult is the Price of Clarity.” Clarity.  Ah, there we have it. Rare is the ad that makes its point clearly. The customers who cost you money are the...

I wish I could remember who gave me the book by Howard Rheingold:  They Have a Word for It: A Lighthearted Lexicon of Untranslatable Words and Phrases. (Sigh.) If you ever give me a book, please write me a note in the front of it so I don’t sit scratching my head wondering where I got it. But thank you, friend,  it’s an interesting book. Here’s what I found on page 249: “Gestalten – &nbs...

I had the great good fortune to be raised by a single mother who was in extremely difficult circumstances: she had no education, no money, and received no monthly child support checks. And these were the June Cleaver/Leave It To Beaver years when it was socially unacceptable to be a “divorcée.” I say it was good fortune because it was by watching my mother that I learned it’s always too soon to pa...

Why do some brands connect when others don’t? Where should you begin when building a brand from scratch? How does an old brand become new again? It's just like in the movies. Have you ever bonded with a character in a television series or a movie? That character’s attitude, values, quirks and characteristics were most likely designed by David Freeman or one of his students. His clients are the mov...

Ninety-nine percent of all ads fail to sparkle for the same reason that most diamonds are dull:  They’re overweight. A perfectly edited ad will shoot points of light across the darkness like a perfectly cut diamond. But rare is the diamond that's cut for maximum brilliance, even though it's not hard to do. Q:  Why would a diamond cutter shape a diamond so it sparkled less instead of more...

Step 1: Become extremely good at something. Anything. “Do you see a man skilled in his work? He will stand before kings; He will not stand before obscure men.” – from the book of Proverbs, chapter 22 Step 2: Push beyond the boundaries of what’s known. Investigate the unknown. Speculate. Theorize. Experiment. Learn from your mistakes. If you can say only what you’ve read in books, you’re a parrot....

How is it that you and I interpret art the same way? We agree that the musical score to  Star Wars  feels adventurous and triumphant. But what within the music tells us so? And there’s something about slow music in a minor key that seems sad. Don’t you agree? Firelight is romantic, but why? Add a trace of black to any color and you’ll make it richer, moodier, classier. But do you underst...

When an ad campaign is producing big results, there will usually be complaints from the public. When an ad campaign is getting poor results, the public rarely complains. What makes people hate an ad? 1.   It’s hard to ignore. Any ad that makes its point sharply will be an irritant. But sharp-pointed ads are also the most effective. 2.   It presents a tightly focused p...

1. Hidden Profit Centers are the new Markup Low-cost providers such as Sam’s Club and Best Buy are selling “in-store exchange” policies at the cash register to supplement the manufacturer’s warranties they don’t honor. In other words, you can’t take a faulty purchase back to the retailer if there’s a problem – you have to contact the manufacturer directly – unless you bought their “in-store exchan...

The old assumption in advertising was that the customer didn't know, and wouldn't know unless you told them. This is no longer a valid assumption. Today's customer enjoys  access to information  far beyond what any of us saw coming. You're aware  of how quickly and easily you gather information online each day, but has it occurred to you that your customers expect information about...

“I'm in the furniture business.  Which media  should I use?” “I'd like to target people who are afraid of the dentist.  Can you recommend  a good mailing list company?” “My uncle uses television ads to attract new customers and they work really well for him. Television ads have made him rich.  What's your opinion  of TV?” “No one  in my town listens to the radio...

If I were to ask you what's limiting your growth, you'd likely tell me, “Traffic. If we had more traffic, we'd make more sales. What we need is more traffic.” But traffic is rarely the problem. It's simply the byproduct of a problem you haven't been able to see. These are the Four Most Common invisible problems that limit your selling opportunities: Problem 1: Your ads aren't convincing. SOLUTION:...

I owe my optimism  to my mother, a single parent whose ironclad confidence kept my sister and I from ever suspecting how poor we really were. We felt like Mom could do anything. She made us feel like everything was going to be okay. And amazingly, it was. I owe my business  to my wife, Pennie, who never worried or complained or suggested that I get a real job, even when the cut-off notic...

Filippo Beccari is an Italian dance teacher a long way from home. Hoping to enrich the lives of 62 orphans, he visits the orphans daily and encourages them to move to the music as he hums or plays. The year is 1773. Three years later Paul Revere rides through Boston shouting “The British are coming! The British are coming!” just as Beccari's orphans glide onto stage and stun a crowd of dignitaries...

About 10 months ago Mike Metzger flew from Clapham Institute in Annapolis to spend a day with us in Austin. “You meet 4 kinds of people on the ocean of life,” Mike said. “Those who  drift  just go with the flow. The wind and the waves control their speed and direction. The drifter quietly floats along and says, ‘Whatever.'” “Those who  surf  are always riding a wave, the next b...