How I Win the Ad Wars - February 8, 2010
Frankly, I Cheat. You Can, Too.
I became an advertising salesman so I could buy groceries. A college dropout with no financial safety net, I installed aluminum guttering on houses during the day and changed reel-to-reel tapes in an automated radio station at night. Our form ...
Guilty Pleasure - February 1, 2010
January 27, 2010: It’s weird when you think about it: Apple releases the iPad just as Salinger breathes his last. It feels like the ending of a play.
J.D. Salinger and Jack Kerouac were the tortured voices that led us into forbidden p ...
Forty Years From Now - January 25, 2010
In 1969, spending time with your friends meant piling into a car and driving around.
Every town had a strip called “the drag,” a place to see and be seen as you cruised back and forth at 20 miles an hour. It's how you made ...
Blind Spot - January 18, 2010
Today's memo is a long oneBut worth reading if you want to make money.
If you knew it was there, they wouldn’t call it a blind spot.
Hidden within your blind spot is your limiting factor, the thing that holds you back and limits your success.
Find your blind spot and stare your limiting factor in the ...
Which Market: Interest or Exchange? - January 11, 2010
Transactions can be immediate or transactions can happen over time.
The purchase of a “Flashing Blue Light Special” is an immediate transaction. I give you something. You give me something. Now we’re done. Transactions like t ...
A Behind-the-Scenes Look at Why - January 4, 2010
The Full Plate Diet is Everywhere
You’re about to begin seeing The Full Plate Diet everywhere you look; bookstores, grocery stores, airports, wholesale clubs… everywhere.
This is an interesting story. I think you’ll enjoy it. Especially since you& ...
Four People. Sort Of. - December 28, 2009
Read to the End and Find a Business Application
It’s entirely possible that today’s memo will make you think less of me.
Maybe not. We’ll see.
People fall into 4 categories in my mind:
1. People I owe.
2. People I know.
3. People Invisible.
4. People ...
Deader Than a Bag of Hammers - December 21, 2009
Mini-Bikes, Tape Recorders, Leisure Suits and Yellow Pages
The Las Vegas Hilton, 2003: The stagehand said, “This is the stage where Elvis appeared when he played Vegas.” He was helping me set up to speak to the managers of all the local, county and state fairs in the English-speaking ...
Targeting the Imaginary Customer - December 14, 2009
Ask the wrong question and you will get the wrong answer
Most businesses target an imaginary customer because someone – probably an advertising salesman – once asked, “Who is your customer?”
Ask any businessperson, “Who is your customer?” and he or s ...
I See Adventure in Your Future - December 7, 2009
The 2009 Annual Report of Wizard Academy
It’s hard to read the label when you’re inside the bottle. Sometimes you need to get away from it all, step outside your surroundings and make some new decisions. To help you do that, we\'ve built you a business school. Some p ...
Selling: Civic vs. Idealist - November 30, 2009
You want an example?
Romulus Whitaker is saving the rainforest in Tamil Nadu, and with it, dozens of species of animals. The problem is complex, but so is Romulus Whitaker.
Tim Bauer is fighting air pollution in the Philippines with a 2-stroke cylinde ...
Home for the Holidays - November 23, 2009
It's beginning to look not like Christmas
They say you can never go home again, just like you can’t step into the same river twice. Things change.
Have you ever been to a class reunion?
"Cigars had burned low, and we were beginning to sample the disillusionment tha ...
My Holiday Gift to You... For Real - November 16, 2009
Tom Hennen has a line in his poem, The Life of a Day, that says,
“We examine each day before us with barely a glance and say, ‘no, this isn’t one I’ve been looking for,’ and wait in a bored sort of way for the next, ...
What Do Your Customers Care About? - November 9, 2009
Peg the Needle on the Relevance Meter If You Want to See Results
Ads are often written under the assumption that we can get people to care about things they don’t really care about. But this approach rarely succeeds.
Traditional ad-think says:
1. Target the right people
2. ...
The Booty Call Incident - November 2, 2009
Big Brother is Alive and Well
My son’s cell phone rang. He answered, “Hello?”
“I’d like to speak to Booty Williams, please.”
“This is Booty.”
[long pause] “Is your name really Booty Williams?&rdq ...
Social Media: Myth or Miracle? - October 26, 2009
Slide 210 from The 40 Year Pendulum, a Dec. 2003 presentation of the Wizard of Ads
Back when I was an advertising salesman, business owners would often dismiss me by saying, “I believe in word-of-mouth.” Then with a smug, self-sati ...
Trigger Emotions with Light and Color - October 19, 2009
A tiny bit technical, but extremely valuable.
In 1869, Monet was painting at La Grenouillere when he realized that the color of an object is modified:
1. by the light in which it is seen,
2. by reflections from other objects, and
3. by contrast with juxtaposed colors.
Monet tr ...
Competitive Environment - October 12, 2009
1. “How good am I?” is the second question that every business owner must answer. “How good are my competitors?” is the first.
Like it or not, your competitors set the height of the bar you must jump. T ...
Turn, Turn, Turn - October 5, 2009
The Mark of a Remarkable Business
Business midgets focus on profit margin, “I can sell these for double my cost!” But business giants focus on turn, “How many more would I sell if I lowered my price?”
Retailers call it “invent ...
Wealth - September 28, 2009
Every life has a scoreboard and how you choose to keep score is up to you.
How are you measuring success?
I’ve known men and women who measure success by their ability to attract the opposite sex. You’ve met these pe ...
How to Make Money - September 21, 2009
If it takes money to make money, how does one make money when he has no money at the start?
A person without capital has nothing to leverage but his or her time. This is why millions of Americans wear the handcuffs of hourly wages.
When ...
Problem Solved - September 14, 2009
After 4 Years of Fighting It
Did you recently – finally – begin to receive the Monday Morning Memo after having subscribed some time ago? We’ve been trying to get it to you, really we have, but the internet gods have not been kind to us.
We've ...
Why Everyone Should Grow Up Poor - September 7, 2009
The 2009 Labor Day Message of the Wizard of Ads
When I was a boy, I noticed that people often remember things as having been better - or worse - than they really were. I would listen to friends and family and think, “That’s not what happened at all. I was there.”
Call ...
Fatal Optimism - August 31, 2009
The Alligator and the Mockingbird
Few people are as tiresome as the person who lives life in a minor key. Pessimistic people remind me of Eeyore the donkey:
“I don’t think we can do it.”
“This idea will never work.”
“It&rs ...
The Poodle and The Vamp - August 24, 2009
Or, The Secret of Being Discovered
The warm-up band is leaving the stage amidst thunderous applause, bowing and waving to the crowd, throwing kisses, fists pumping into the air. Now it’s time for the headliner, the living legends, the singers you came to see. ...
Carve Your Important Things In Stone. For Free. - August 17, 2009
"Give a product away, and it can go viral. Charge a single cent for it and you’re in an entirely different business... ‘Free’ has the power to create a consumer stampede.”
– Chris Anderson, Free: The ...
How Do You Want to Feel Right Now? - August 10, 2009
We've invented a machine that lets you select your mood. This astounding device can be adjusted to make you feel however you’d like to feel. It’s called a radio.
The distinct advantage of humans is our ability ...
Boldness Buys the Priceless - August 3, 2009
A Look at Management vs. Leadership
A group of students from the University of Texas recently asked Corrine Taylor to set up an interview with me on the subject of leadership. My schedule hasn’t allowed me to do that interview yet, but their request did trigger some tho ...
Sailing With Magellan - July 27, 2009
How to Turn $100 into $100,000
Magellan was a misfit, a visionary with a better idea, a curious explorer of things unknown. He would have fit right in at Wizard Academy.
But a similar outlook on life isn’t the only thing that connects us to Magellan. There’ ...
Spend Not a Penny - July 20, 2009
and Get Real Skinny
The Full Plate Diet is an incredibly cool book. And because you’re a friend of Wizard Academy, you can have a no-charge advance copy. That’s right. No charge. Nada. Zero. Zip. The publisher – Wizard Academy board member Ra ...
What Time Is This? - July 13, 2009
A close friend told me last week why his wife doesn’t like me: having seen me speak before a crowd, she is convinced I lack humility. I am a boastful man, arrogant and unprincipled, merciless and cold.
She’s not the first ...
Magic of the Elbs - July 6, 2009
Did you know I’ve been writing these Monday Morning Memos for 15 years now? And in all that time:
1. There’s never been a Monday when I didn’t send a Memo.
2. I’ve never repeated a Memo that had been previously ...
Grin of the Cheshire Cat - June 29, 2009
What will be your customer's memory of you?
“It [the Cheshire Cat] vanished quite slowly, beginning with the end of the tail, and ending with the grin, which remained some time after the rest of it had gone.” – Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865)
I never ...
Why I Have No Goals - June 22, 2009
Maybe it’s because I was a young adult in the Dress-for-Success, go-go 80’s and retain vivid memories of those hollow days.
Maybe it’s because Pennie and I had close friends who stepped on the landmines of “Get Ric ...
Portals, Reveals, and Partial Reveals - June 15, 2009
How to Get Customers to Give You Their Time.
Portals create intrigue in paintings, photographs, literature and movies. Architects use them to lengthen the time we spend in landmark stores and theme parks. Portals say, “Come on in. Stay awhile.”
Dr. Nick Grant, a close f ...
The 12 Languages of the Mind - June 8, 2009
I write today with some hesitation, the same hesitation I felt 2 weeks ago when I wrote about the romance of shadows and the piercing of horizontal planes. You may recall that I asked, “Was this stuff interesting for you or did it go over ...
How Will You Measure Success? - June 1, 2009
The keeper of my calendar told me a few weeks ago that David Rehr had called to schedule a day with me in Austin. I scratched my head and wondered why.
David served as a congessonal aide on Capitol Hill when he was young, then he took a ...
How to Make Your Store Interesting - May 25, 2009
Romance of Shadows, Curiosity of Vertical Planes
Illumination and Proximity are 2 of the 12 languages of the mind.
Your feelings about an item are affected by the way it’s illuminated.
Feelings of romance, intimacy, prestige and adventure are triggered b ...
Dream the Impossible Dream - May 18, 2009
The Tinkerbell Effect describes things that exist only because people believe in them. Remember Tinkerbell, the fairy in Peter Pan who is revived from near death by the belief of the audience?
[Tinkerbell has drunk the poison meant for P ...
Quixote's Horse - May 11, 2009
A year before the birth of Barack Obama, John Steinbeck bought a pickup truck, named it “Rocinante” and went looking for America. His final book, Travels with Charley (1962,) is a journal of his thoughts and memories as he drove that ...
How to Make Big Things Happen Fast - May 4, 2009
As you know, I’ve been trying to get one of my favorite business authors to the Academy to host a 2-day event.
Today I’m pleased to announce that July 28-29 you can meet and be mentored by the great Jon Spoelstra.
Jon is goi ...
Style Tips for Ad Writers - April 27, 2009
Your unconscious writing style is how you write when you’re simply being yourself. You also have a formal style and you might even have a whimsical style. But three styles is usually as good as it gets.
Language, however, is extra ...
How to Describe - April 20, 2009
Minor key life is the mournful echo of a hollowed-out gourd, bleached in the sun, hard and empty. Life should be lived in a major key, drenched in the colors of nature, quivering with energy, throbbing with purpose.
Last week I showed you ho ...
How to Choose Colors - April 13, 2009
We learned last week that numbers are a language.
Things communicated in numbers can be spoken in no other language. And because numbers are language, numbers can lie.
Color, too, is a language.
We use the language of color to reinforce ...
Bad Math and You - April 6, 2009
Activity-Based Accounting, Part Two
The key to Activity-Based Accounting is never to separate the numbers from the activities of the people represented by the numbers. When numbers in a business lose their connection to people and their actions, the numbers are no longer trustw ...
Activity-Based Accounting - March 30, 2009
How Wal-Mart Killed K-Mart and Best Buy Beat Circuit City
I spoke to a small auditorium full of business school grad students at the University of Texas last month.
They were fascinated by my case study of Transactional vs. Relational customers. I saw their eyes widen and their heads move up a ...
Never, Never, Never - March 23, 2009
1. Never promise everything you plan to deliver.
Leave something to become the delight factor. That unexpected, extra bit you deliver “because we love you” will go a long way toward helping the customer forgive and forget any are ...
Fear Is Contagious - March 16, 2009
I am reminded of what Michel Eyquem De Montaigne said with tongue in cheek during the French Renaissance 450 years ago, “My life has been filled with terrible misfortune; most of which never happened.”
As expected, we received a f ...
Curiosity Rocks - March 9, 2009
8,000 years before Stonehenge and the Pyramids
The rocks of Gobekli Tepe (pronounced Go-beckly Tepp-ay) are a curiosity, and curiosity rocks.
Travel with me to that ancient land between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in southeastern Turkey.
A shepherd wandering on the hil ...
Wobble - March 2, 2009
The Beagle Sings with Buble
My staff can hardly get any work done. It seems the whole world is calling to ask what I think will happen with our economy.
The President of the United States made a primetime speech last week.
The press is an interesting anim ...
The New Magic - February 23, 2009
of the Wizard of Ads
Ten years ago I taught you how to create relational ads that target the right hemisphere of the customer’s brain. Advertisers who learned this technique made a lot of money.
Five years ago I taught you that 2008 would be the final ...
Let Me Tell You a Story... - February 16, 2009
Magic Words to Penetrate the Filter,Erase Suspicion and Lower the Guard
It was exactly 10 years ago. I was on the telephone with an 87 year-old man I had been hunting for several weeks. I needed this man’s permission to publish a private letter he had written to America’s Chief of Naval Operations ...
What Is America? - February 9, 2009
America, I think, is not a place. If another people lived here, the geography would be the same but it would not be our nation.
America, I think, is not a government. Our pendulum swings from one extreme to the other and our politics are not ...
Substance Over Style - February 2, 2009
How to Advertise in a Recession
"If you say that there are elephants flying in the sky, people are not going to believe you. But if you say that there are four hundred and twenty-five elephants flying in the sky, people will probably believe you." - Gabriel Garcia M ...
A Preview of Coming Attractions - January 26, 2009
As We Look at the Business Climate of 2009:
A new generation of entrepreneurs is emerging from the shadows. None of these is well funded but they are focused, relevant, and in step with the public. Some of them will grow to become business icons by mid-2012. (Three and a half years f ...
Please Don't Throw Me in the Briar Patch! - January 19, 2009
Change is inevitable. Growth is optional. *
We’re living in a time of tumultuous change.
A misinformed president declares a war. The value of homes – which were never supposed to fall – fell. The SEC can’t make Wall Street color between the lines and 700 bil ...
Breakthrough Answer 13 - January 12, 2009
Turn It Upside Down. Do It Backwards.
TRIZ is the Russian acronym for a string of words that mean “Theory of Inventive Problem Solving,” an innovation matrix of the late Genrich Altshuller, a Soviet scientist who proved:
1. there are only about 1,500 basic problems i ...
The Secret of Success - January 5, 2009
Tiny, Reliable Indicators are Clockwork Angels
A successful consultant uses small indicators to make big decisions. If he explains his methods to data-worshippers, he sounds like an idiot. When it later turns out that he was right, the doubters claim he was lucky, saying, “You can&r ...
The Secret of Happiness - December 29, 2008
Albert Schweitzer. In background, clockwise from lower left: Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Ann Radcliffe, Horace Mann, J.M. Barrie, Marian Wright Edelman, Anne Frank
Albert Schweitzer was a musician and physician who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 195 ...
Storm Fear - December 22, 2008
First it gets dark, then the air slaps you from every direction and the ocean falls from the sky. Laws of gravity have been repealed. Your thoughts reach up like flowers for sunlight but the sun cannot be found.
I am darkness. I am the storm. ...
Introverts and Extraverts - December 15, 2008
Run the following ad in any newspaper:
2006 Honda Civic DX 4dr, White, 63,000 miles, $8,100. Call 555-1212
These are the questions you’ll be asked by nearly half your callers:
“What year is that Honda Civic? Is it a 2-door or ...
What to Expect in 2009 - December 8, 2008
Ready to Play Leapfrog?
The coming year will be fun, adventure-filled and profitable for people who have their wits about them.
A number of small business owners are positioning themselves to overtake their much larger rivals.
Will one of these companies be yo ...
Gather Up the Fragments - December 1, 2008
Chapter six in John’s story about the life of Jesus tells us how he fed 5,000 people with 5 loaves and 2 small fishes.
I have no problem reconciling God and science, so the miracle bit doesn’t stumble me in the least. The thing ...
Silent Messages - November 24, 2008
How to Peel the Layers in a Photograph
I’ve been thinking about images this week. Specifically, I’ve been thinking about all the non-human elements that can communicate meaning in photographs.
Watch people in art galleries and museums and you’ll see that we te ...
Becoming Credible - November 17, 2008
Tom Wanek believes credibility can be “purchased” by risking one or more of six currencies. The more you put at risk, the more believable your message.
Currencies that Buy Credibility:
1. Material Wealth
Of the six currencies, ...
The New Language of Effective Ads - November 10, 2008
Most women can tell at least one funny story about a tragic first date. In most of these stories, a misguided man spends the entire evening saying,
“Here's an example of how wonderful I am...”
“Let me tell you what I can ...
The Seven Chairs - November 3, 2008
The fifth one ended up in France.
Peter Wenders chooses stories and illustrations for children’s books.
It’s 1954, and today is a day like any other; Wenders sits innocently in his office, believing that people are who they claim to be.
And he assumes they&rsqu ...
Tomorrow's America - October 27, 2008
Humility and Simplicity are the New Frontier
Americans have always treasured independence and achievement. We’ve seen ourselves as fighters who stood tall after every victory, chin up, chest out, shoulders back. And to the victor go the spoils, right? Big houses, big cars, la ...
Thinking Outside the Box - October 20, 2008
Part Two: If You've Got the Nerve.
“The brain has three natural roadblocks that stand in the way of truly innovative thinking:
1. flawed perception
2. fear of failure
3. the inability to persuade others.”
&n ...
How to Think Outside the Box - October 13, 2008
On January 19, 1998, I wrote a Monday Morning Memo titled, Creativity is an Inert Gas. It was published as chapter 89 in The Wizard of Ads. These are a few of its paragraphs:
Moments of emotional recovery are the best t ...
Husbands Who Cheat - October 6, 2008
No, We're Not Talking About Advertising Today
I recently had dinner with a young friend who has been married for about a year. When he said that he and his wife were hoping to have a child, I knew it was time for The Talk.
An older friend gave me The Talk twenty-eight years ago ...
$700 Billion. Greg Saw It Coming - September 29, 2008
And Tried To Warn Us Three Years Ago
Greg Farrell, bottom left, with Bill Aberman, Jeff Sexton, and the rest of the class known as The Midnight Revellers at Wizard Academy in June, 2004
I met Greg Farrell in 1999 while on a book tour promoting Secret Formulas of the Wizard of A ...
Some Things There Are That Last Forever - September 22, 2008
I recently asked a group of 14 men to share a snapshot from their photo albums of random memory, a vivid image, unfaded, a moment inexplicable, captured forever by a long-ago click of that camera in the brain.
Here’s what they handed me ...
Sailing the Sea of Japan - September 15, 2008
Elizabeth was a young Quaker girl who fell happily in love and got married in 1929. “Morgan Vining, my husband, swept my little boat out of the shallows into the sunlit depths of life’s stream and we had almost five years together bef ...
How to Write Ads - September 8, 2008
for Realtors, Used Cars and Free Puppies
Real estate is a business involving mountains of money. It’s also a business in crisis. Put these together and it means ka-ching if you know how to make the phone ring for realtors.
You ought not be surprised that I know how to make ph ...
The Extraordinary People Myth - September 1, 2008
A Monday Morning Memo of the Wizard of Ads
It’s like you’ve asked him to defend his religion; the business owner who believes in growing his businesses through exceptional service delivered by extraordinary people gets testy when you ask him to name a business that has succe ...
A Post-American World? Really? - August 25, 2008
Our American men dropped the baton in the 4x100 meter relay. It was embarrassing. Unthinkable.
A few minutes later our American women did precisely the same thing.
The commentators were brutal, but accurate: “You have to look at the n ...
Dealing with Rejection - August 18, 2008
Advertising salespeople are highly paid because rejection hurts. They told me to rub Zig Ziglar on it, but the sting and the ache stayed with me. I was 20 years old.
The smiley seminar speaker said, “Look in the mirror each morning and ...
The Magic Table - August 11, 2008
A Monday Morning Memo for the Clients and Friends of Roy H. Williams
You walk into a room, empty but for a table carved from crystal. Girdling the table are 11 other persons whose occupations are similar to yours.
You place ten thousand dollars on the table, your gift to the group. Each of the other 11 do ...
Follow the Sound of Bulldozers - August 4, 2008
and the Smell of Fresh Paint
Commercially speaking, where are things happening in your town? Move to where the action is. Follow Best Buy, Home Depot, Starbucks and the other Big Boys who have already done the research.
Nothing draws a crowd like a crowd.
Media ...
Art. Brand. Cultural Icon. - July 28, 2008
It's as easy as A.B.C.
You’re attracted to art
1. when it stands for something you believe in,
2. when it shows you a reflection of your own core values, or
3. gives you a glimpse of your inner face.
You're drawn to a brand for precisely the same reas ...
Feeding Stray Puppies and Kittens - July 21, 2008
Mom’s off-white Formica table with wobbly metal legs had a charred circle on top where I once set a pan that was way too hot. Mom couldn’t afford a tablecloth to cover it, but whenever she suspected a person might have nowhere to go f ...
Where Does America Spend Its Ad Dollars? - July 14, 2008
(Uh-oh, am I about to light an email fire I can't put out?)
Traditional wisdom says, “Advertise in the newspaper. Everyone reads the newspaper. There are lots of radio stations but only one newspaper.”
The problem with traditional wisdom is that it’s usually more tradition than wisd ...
Richie's Red Bus - July 7, 2008
The Monday Morning Memo for July 7, 2008
I’ve known Richie Starkey since I was five. He turns 68 today.
Richie said the only thing he wanted for his birthday was for you to pause today at noon, wherever you are in the world, make a peace sign with your fingers and say with a ...
Radio/Newspaper Smackdown - July 6, 2008
Story begins below image.(Image size reduced to fit this page)
If I told you our experiment was constructed specifically to test radio versus newspaper, I’d be lying. Like most discoveries, we stumbled on this one by accident.
Here’s how it happened: Lifestyle Centers of America is a ...
Superficial Reality - June 30, 2008
Beauty is impossibly thin.
The thinnest human hair is half a million angstroms thick. Typing paper is a million angstroms. Yet the layer of quicksilver that turns plate glass into a mirror is only 700 angstroms thick. It would take 714 such layers to equal the thickness ...
Make Your Mission Statement Ring - June 23, 2008
“The fundamental shortcoming of most mission statements is that everyone expects them to be highfalutin and all-encompassing. The result is a long, boring, commonplace and pointless joke. Companies are all writing the same mediocre stuff.&r ...
Shorter is Better - June 16, 2008
The Wizard's Laws of the Universe, Lesson One
My friend Kary Mullis once said, “Claims made by scientists… can be separated from the scientists who make them. It isn’t important to know who Isaac Newton was. He discovered that force is equal to mass times acceleration. ...
A Comparison of 9 Major Media - June 9, 2008
The Medium is Not the Message
Marshall McLuhan’s famous line, “The medium is the message,” is at best a Japanese koan (ko-ahn.) You know, “What is the sound of one hand clapping,” and all that? I’m sure ...
Back When We Killed for Tennis Shoes - June 2, 2008
MAY 14, 1990 – The cover of Sports Illustrated showed a pistol being shoved into the back of a high school kid. Those were the days when an alarming trend swept this land of purple mountains, majesties, above the fruited plains.
Kids were k ...
Visuospatial Sketchpad - May 26, 2008
(the movie screen in your mind)
Time travel is fun.
Want to learn to do it?
Follow me.
The year is 1608. England buzzes with William Shakespeare.
Hamlet, Macbeth, and King Lear are performed to rave reviews while 44 year-old William grieves the death of his mother.
...
Sholem Aleichem - May 19, 2008
(SHO-lem a-LAY-kem)
When Samuel Langhorne Clemens began to write, he adopted the pen name Mark Twain, a common shout among riverboat pilots on the Mississippi river.
When Sholem Rabinovich began to write, he adopted the pen name Sholem Aleichem, a common Yiddish gree ...
Horizontal Thinking - May 12, 2008
American education teaches a subject vertically, narrow and deep. And the deeper one plunges into the subject, the narrower it gets. Specialization.
1a. Liberal Arts
1b. Literature
1c. Spanish Literature
1d. Spanish Literature of 1492-1681
1e. ...
Customer Profiles - May 5, 2008
I’ve never seen a business fail due to reaching the wrong people. But if you listen to advertising sales reps, “reaching the right people” will solve all your problems.
And guess who has exactly the right people for you?
T ...
How to Make Business GoodWhen Times are Bad - April 28, 2008
Archetypal Patterns, Part 3
Here's the Pattern: When times are tough and customers are scarce, business owners buckle down and try to become even better at the things they do well. They do this because they trust the Guide pattern, “This has always worked in the past. ...
Archetypal Patterns - April 21, 2008
Part Two. Fractal Self Similarity.Thriller as the Soundtrack to Casablanca.
Today we’re going to fart around a little. You up for it?
Of course you are.
Much has been written about how the 1973 album by Pink Floyd, Dark Side of the Moon, synchronizes with The Wizard of Oz (1939) as a shockingly appropriate sou ...
Archetypal Patterns - April 14, 2008
Part One. Reconciling the Challenge pattern to the Guide pattern
Half your brain sees a hierarchy.
Deductive reasoning is a product of this.
Vertical. Sequential. Objective. Scientific. Hard facts. Details.
"Be for what is."
The other half sees connectedness.
Intuition is a direct result.
Hor ...
The Future of Radio - April 7, 2008
Ten years ago, Eric Rhoads asked me to appear on the cover of Radio Ink in a suit of armor. Since Eric is one of my closest friends and a major supporter of Wizard Academy, I agreed to do it for him.
Since 1998, my Wizard of Ads column has appear ...
Ancient Greeks and Turning Fifty - March 31, 2008
Socrates was right, “The unexamined life is not worth living.”
Most of us have moments when we ask, “Am I happy? Is this what I want to do? Am I making a difference? Would I be missed if I were gone?”
In ...
Contemplation - March 24, 2008
Twenty-five years ago,
my friend Richard Exley read me some words I've never forgotten.
Here they are:
If I had my life to live over, I’d try to make more mistakes next time. I would relax. I would limber up. I would be sillier than I ...
Teddy Roosevelt's Daughter - March 17, 2008
“What will he write of us, Cissy, this young man who has taken it upon himself to tell our stories?”
“I’m not a mind reader, Alice.”
“He never met us. He didn’t know us. He has seen us only through ...
Buried Treasure - March 10, 2008
2008 is shaping up to be an unhappy year for most product and service categories.
If your year-to-date numbers are trending ahead of 2007, I salute you.
Today’s Monday Morning Memo is for the remaining 96 percent of American busin ...
Where is Your Blind Spot? - March 3, 2008
Answer: If you knew, it wouldn't be a blind spot.
Accelerate the performance of your business in 2008. Find your blind spot and fix it.
There are 7 common blind spots with 4 common causes.
The most common blind spots have to do with…
1. customer profiling.
What traits do your cu ...
2008: Year of the Beagle - February 25, 2008
Courage... Curiosity... Intuition.
In the biggest news since Tiger Woods won the U.S. Open a beagle has taken top honors at Westminster for the first time in history. Arooo! Aroo-Aroooooo!
In the happy little village where I spend a lot of time, beagles are the symbol of curiosity ...
7-Step Secret of Success - February 18, 2008
How to Get Where You Want to Go
1. See your destination in your mind.
“When you don’t know where you’re going, any road will get you there.”
– White Rabbit
2. Start walking.
“The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.&rdqu ...
Once Upon a Time - February 11, 2008
I was freshly married to Pennie and barely old enough to see over the dash of a car but I wanted to show her the magical places of my childhood, so we saved up enough money for 3 tanks of gas and made the 200-mile drive from Broken Arrow to Ardmore, ...
Clarity is the New Creativity - February 4, 2008
In the language of academics:
The central executive of working memory is the new battleground for marketers. Writers are successfully surprising Broca, thereby gaining the momentary attention of the public, but an absence of salience remains.
In ...
Hello and Goodbyefrom John and Jane Doe - January 28, 2008
January 28, 2008
John and Jane Doe
4321 Happily Thereafter Ave.
Everytown, USA
To the Companies Who Want Our Money,
Yesterday’s selling techniques aren’t working so good. Have you noticed?
We’re betting that your traff ...
2008: Year of Transition - January 21, 2008
In January of 2004 I launched a public presentation: Society’s 40-year Pendulum. Audiences from Stockholm to Sydney to Vancouver to Myrtle Beach will recall my statement, “2003 was the first year in a 6-year transition from the Idealist p ...
The Glass Ceiling - January 14, 2008
Every business that tries to rise to its full height will bump its head on a glass ceiling they didn’t realize was there.
That glass ceiling is created by the business owner’s core beliefs about the customer.
Traditionally, 5 out ...
2008 Business Forecast - January 7, 2008
from high atop Wizard's Tower
America split into 3 camps last year.
Those camps came sharply into focus at Christmas.
1. The Hunker-Down crowd cut back their purchases, uneasy about dwindling dollars and rising debt. Traffic in non-discount retail stores was ...
Gravity of the Edge - December 31, 2007
Whether it exists in the public consciousness or only in my mind, I can't be sure, but there’s an anxiousness about 2008 that gives me pause. We seem to be pushing our way to the edge.
Presidency, economy, war.
What will happen?
...
Actions Speak Louder Than - December 24, 2007
I’m a big believer in the power of words. But when words aren’t backed by corresponding actions, talk is cheap.
Have you ever felt a disconnection between what a company promised you in their ads and what they actually delivered?
...
Time and Chance. - December 17, 2007
Concorde was a child of the 60s. Flying 11 miles above the earth at twice the speed of sound, this jet was literally faster than a rifle bullet. London to New York in 2 hours and 53 minutes.
The Concorde isn’t flown anymore.
During a rout ...
Danger Signals: - December 10, 2007
Sounds of Circling the Drain
These are the noises companies make
as they’re going down the tubes:
1. “Our only problem is traffic.”
Slow traffic is a symptom, not a disease. Look for its cause. WHY is traffic slow? Is it because the public doesn’ ...
Thrive in a Recession. How to. - December 3, 2007
Some people say a recession is coming.
Others say it’s already here.
Experts say the best way to start a recession is to predict one’s on the way. So hey, I’m not predicting a recession, okay? REMEMBER! If a recession sn ...
Wrong Turn Taken on the Straight and Narrow - November 26, 2007
by Roy H. Williams
In the Land of the Way Things Ought to Be
I’m handsome and wealthy and strong and free.
But in the Land of the Way Things Really Are
I’m struggling and awkward, a bit bizarre.
I threw a party, invited my friends
From the Land of ...
American Indian Eloquence - November 19, 2007
reprinted from Magical Worlds of the Wizard of Ads (2001)
America’s Thanksgiving holiday originated when the Pilgrims gave thanks to God for sending them an Indian friend named Squanto. This much you already knew. What you didn’t know is that long before the Pilgrims lan ...
A Tour of Tigers - November 12, 2007
TIGER ONE:
Are you trying to Grow a business, Build a career, Overcome an obstacle?
"Those who expect moments of change to be comfortable and free of conflict have not learned their history." – Joan Wallach Scott
Ferocity is a wondro ...
Ronald, Bill and You - November 5, 2007
I thought Bill Clinton was a good president for the same reason I thought Ronald Reagan was good; both were excellent head cheerleaders.
Their politics, personalities and characters were different, but each had a similar ability to keep things fr ...
Tomorrow Has Come. - October 29, 2007
When The Cluetrain Manifesto was published in 1999, it smacked of silly futurism, like Maxwell Smart’s shoe-phone and Dick Tracey’s TV-wristwatch.
Both of which are now possible.
Likewise, the societal shift predicted by The Cluetra ...
Is Yours a Brand or a Bland? - October 22, 2007
Procedural Memory is the key to your brand being automatically remembered.
Accomplish this through Relevance x Repetition.
Symbolic Thought is how to make a brand meaningful.
Access this by linking the unknown to the known.
Particle Conflict is t ...
Choosing Your Magic Words - October 15, 2007
“I’m a surfer,” she said as she extended her hand.
It almost broke my heart.
Her husband had moved her into a tiny fixer-upper on the tear-stained cheek of an Oklahoma town. With a young child dangling from each of her arms ...
Do You Lean Toward Niche Marketing? - October 8, 2007
Think too deeply about customer profiling and you’ll soon fall into niche marketing.
And the problem with niches is they’re not created equal.
Have you chosen a niche too small?
Reis and Trout inadvertently popularized niches ...
Can You Make It Talk? - October 1, 2007
People are more interesting than non-people.
Mingle a bit of wood, paint and cloth, then drench the pile in sparkling imagination and a new person leaps onto the stage.
Few techniques in communication are as powerful – or as often overlooked – as personification: ascribing human ...
Seeing Yourself Real - September 24, 2007
Paper Roses Have No Fragrance
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 qui ...
An Extremely Very Good Book - September 17, 2007
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 h ...
The Monster Under My Bed - September 10, 2007
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.&rdq ...
Making the Big Money - September 3, 2007
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 ...
But Isn't Jewelry a Visual Product? - August 27, 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 five star hotel, huh? Seven hundred dollars a night. Wow.
The tuxes are jewelers f ...
A Conversation Between Friends - August 20, 2007
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 m ...
Ready. Angle. Frame. - August 13, 2007
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 approac ...
Do Good Ideas Always Work? - August 6, 2007
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 ...
What Courage Can Do With Six Dollars - July 30, 2007
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. ...
non sequitur - July 23, 2007
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 woul ...
Why Most Ads Don't Work - July 16, 2007
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 ...
M=12-12 - July 9, 2007
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 ...
Wisdom of Women - July 2, 2007
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 ...
Accelerated Branding - June 25, 2007
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 ...
How to Make Your Ads Sparkle - June 18, 2007
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 t ...
How to Succeed as a Consultant - June 11, 2007
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 ...
How Art Touches the Heart - June 4, 2007
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 ...
Are Your Ads Getting Enough Complaints? - May 28, 2007
Part Three in a Three-Part Series
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 ...
10 Ways Retail is Changing - May 21, 2007
Part Two in a Three-Part Series
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. ...
How Retail is Changing - May 14, 2007
Part One in a Three-Part Series
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.
Y ...
The Media Is Not the Message - May 7, 2007
"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 attra ...
What's Holding Your Business Back? - April 30, 2007
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 proble ...
The Women In Our Lives - April 23, 2007
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, ...
What Makes Jack a Dull Boy? - April 16, 2007
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 r ...
Drifting, Surfing, Drowning and Sailing - April 9, 2007
In Puddles, Swamps, Wells and Oceans
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 the ...
When Knowledge Isn't Enough - April 2, 2007
Looking to make a change? Remember: transformation happens experientially, not intellectually.
We often receive instruction and agree, "I see what you're saying," but seldom do we actually do the thing we learned. We just agree with it in ...
Money and Art - March 26, 2007
A Wizard Academy Field Trip
She judged us one-by-one as we entered the building. Chin held high, she looked down the ridgeline of her nose like she was sighting along the barrel of a gun. A quiet sniff let us know she did not approve.
I hope to God she doesn't know how t ...
Do Your Words Make Music? - March 19, 2007
Let's Look at Magnetic Meter
Modern schools teach Journalism and Creative Writing.
Study Journalism and you'll write ads that are informative. Study Creative Writing and you'll write ads that entertain. But neither is likely to persuade.
Only one school of writing ...
Magic Words - March 12, 2007
Yes, there are magic words. Do you know them?
Penetrate the shield of customer indifference by shooting verbs from your word-gun. Leap the wall of inattention by putting verb-springs under your feet. Hold the gaze of a wide-eyed audience by sm ...
The Faded Color of Empty Words - March 5, 2007
Advertising isn't working like it did a few years ago. You've noticed this, right?
Most advertisers are convinced that technology is to blame.
TV advertisers will tell you that TiVo and her sister Digital Video Recorders are blockin ...
10 Unusual Ways to Advertise - February 26, 2007
Are you a one-person company with a lunch-money ad budget?
Good News: Time and money are interchangeable. You can always save one by spending more of the other.
When money is tight, spend time.(If you don't have any money AND you don' ...
Will You Embarrass Yourself? - February 19, 2007
Are you anxious to look foolish in front of others?
Will you happily submit yourself to ridicule?
Are you willing to do a thing badly until you've learned to do it well?
Probably not, unless you're the one in five hundred ...
Be For What Is - February 12, 2007
My friend and fellow Worthless Bastard Brett Feinstein occasionally quotes his business partner, Jamie, as saying, "Be for what is." I think I understand what Jamie is saying.
There are basically two ways of seeing:
1. the way things ought to be. ...
Language of Shadow and Silence - February 5, 2007
Silence is a language of context.
White space is silence in print ads.
Visual saturation is its opposite.
Shadow is another language of context.
Silence is seen and shadows are heard in the dim-light quiet of the printed word:
We had co ...
Thought Particles On Broadway - January 29, 2007
You're deeply unhappy with the way things are, but you're not quite sure what to change or who to blame. Depression is the name we give to unfocused anger.
Grief is the name we give to Anger + Sorrow.
Cruelty is the name given to Anger + ...
Peter Pan and Superman - January 22, 2007
Glance at the headline above and you think, "Imaginary characters."
Add angels to that list and the category will blur to "Characters who do good" if you're a believer in angels, but will remain unchanged if you consider them to be imaginary.
...
Symbolic Thought: the Secret to Selling - January 15, 2007
As we learned in last week's memo, a person can't imagine a personal future without assembling it from stored memories of their past.
This means your customer will better understand the new and different when you relate it to the old and f ...
How to Create a Different Future - January 8, 2007
We do not remember days. We remember moments.
The secret to creating a different future is to remember a different past.
Literally.
What do you remember about your past? Do you remember the pain? The frustration? The injustice ...
Method or Madness? - January 1, 2007
Sorting my email, I came upon a survey sent to me by an acquaintance:
I'm about to change the name of my company from The Success Clinic to something else, and I need your help to find the best name.
Which of these do you like best?
...
A Memory of Life - December 25, 2006
I still don't know his last name.
Gille arrived from Michigan in a small jar with his photograph on the lid. His friend had sent an email to Chapel Dulcinea asking if we'd be willing to launch some of Gille's ashes into the breeze that ...
I Am Sleep - December 18, 2006
When Too Big
wedges into a head too small,
When Too Hard
crowds into a life too soft,
When Too Much
has happened to make sense of it all,
I am Sleep.
Let me do my work.
– Roy H. Williams
Have you ever been confronted with an idea Too ...
Souls of Cities - December 11, 2006
I've created ads for local businesses from coast to coast for nearly a quarter century and I've studied the population of every place for which I've written ads; more than 100 towns in all. And I've presented seminars in an additional ...
Why We Buy - December 4, 2006
Happiness rarely triggers commerce. Unhappiness often does.
Purchases are triggered by dissatisfaction with the way things are. We purchase when we have a need, a desire, an itch to scratch. We want to change our condition, our surroundings, our s ...
Revealing the Vivid Unexpected - November 27, 2006
Part One: The Secret of Saying Too Little
Suffice it to say that last week's memo had precisely the effect I had anticipated.
We'll speak no more about it.
I will not dissect my own writing like a formaldehyde frog in the dim light of your monitor. But I will, for your benefit ...
Live Your Crowded Hour - November 20, 2006
Standing at your bedside, I don't know if you're dead or only sleeping.
Soon our friends will lay pennies on your eyes to pay Charon for your passage. A silly ritual, our friends will do it anyway.
But you were dead long before ...
Your Customer and You - November 13, 2006
Your prospective customer has questions about you. Where's the first place they're likely to look for answers?
Sadly, your wonderful "Big enough to serve you, small enough to know you" public image probably isn't going to be enough ...
Because It Needed to Exist - November 6, 2006
"Savannah's squares may be public, but they feel private. Their massive, gnarled oaks – dripping with Spanish moss – create an insular mood, not to mention a deep shade… So lazy and calming are these ancient parcels that they act as a narco ...
Irrational Commitment - October 30, 2006
or, Why Did Wizard Academy Build a Free Wedding Chapel?
Irrational commitment is a powerful thing. It is the stuff of heroes. Legends live because of it.
And like anything powerful, it can be turned toward darkness.
But let us look toward the light.
Francis Bacon (1561-1626) made a fascinating ob ...
What's with the Name Wizard Academy? - October 23, 2006
Are You Guys a Cult, or What?
Sigh... We get asked that question a lot.
No, we don't have anything to do with witches, warlocks, séances, Harry Potter or Halloween. We're simply a school of the communication arts.
Our mission is to improve the creative thinking and ...
The Power of PR - October 16, 2006
Advertising is what you buy from the sales department of the media. Public Relations (PR) is what you get from the news department for free.
How many ads do you suppose a good news story is worth?
Q: Which of the following statements is fal ...
Refer to an Unseen Action - October 9, 2006
A Master's Method for Subtly Surprising Broca
Toward the end of last week's Monday Morning Memo I promised, "Next week I'll teach you how to increase the magnetism of a message by referring to unseen action." Mischievously, I preceded that statement with a subtle example of the very thin ...
The New Targeting - October 2, 2006
Persona-based writing is the new Targeting. According to what we've seen so far, ads that employ persona-based writing are outperforming yesterday's demo-targeted ads by an average of 81 percent.
Website copy, direct mail letters, radio sc ...
Six Things Explained - September 25, 2006
Every Nazi believed every other Nazi had character and integrity. Likewise, the Ku Klux Kooks and the Taliban believe themselves to be the high defenders of all that is holy and true.
Your judgment of the "character and integrity" of others is roo ...
Heroes, Friends and Personal Pride - September 18, 2006
Will you tell me the truth about yourself if I let you do it from behind a mask?
I'm collecting impressions today and I'm willing to share my collected data with you. My hope is that we'll both will get a glimpse into how we measur ...
Business Life-Cycles - September 11, 2006
Are You Embracing Fundamental Change or Incremental Change?
Why does every branch of medicine have pediatric specialists? Are kids a different species than adults?
In a word, "yes."
According to Dr. David Nichols, "Children are susceptible to different diseases than adults. Their basic anatomy i ...
Visual Images vs. Mental Images - September 4, 2006
A visual image is a simple thing, a picture that enters the eyes.
But a mental image is more complex.
Assembled in the mind from information real and imagined, mental images are complex composites of sight, sound, taste, touch, smell, opinion a ...
Avoiding Ad-Speak - August 28, 2006
Contrary to popular belief, Americans don't hate advertising.
We just hate ads that sound like ads.
Do your ads sound like ads? Are you guilty of Ad-speak?
Ad-speak is filled with polished words and filtered phrases that deliver ...
7 Diagnostic Tools for Marketing - August 21, 2006
Do you feel that something might be wrong with your business but you're not quite sure what it is?
Solving the problem is the easy part. The tricky part is getting clarity on exactly what the problem is.
Careless doctors treat symptoms. ...
Pioneers and Settlers - August 14, 2006
I was planning to write When Marketing is a Mirage, but that's going to have to wait. Because today I'm hearing the voice of John Steinbeck as he mumbles to his poodle, Charley, and ambles toward his pickup truck:
"When I was very young an ...
That Glowing Bridge to the Unknown - August 7, 2006
To go from one state of consciousness to another...
To move from an old opinion to a new...
To travel from ignorance to insight
and darkness to light...
requires a portal.
A portal is a transitionary device of sight or sound that functions as ...
String Theology - July 31, 2006
Quantum Mechanics and General Relativity are both accepted as scientific fact even though they're mutually exclusive. Albert Einstein spent the second half of his life searching for a unifying truth that would reconcile the two.
Einstein was s ...
Doing My Happy Dance - July 24, 2006
Last Thursday the Wall Street Journal published a story about a new book written by two of our faculty members, hinting strongly that if the biggest advertising agencies on Madison Avenue would just buy a copy and read it, they would find the answers ...
How Often Should I Change My Ads? - July 17, 2006
About 15 years ago I concluded that a medium-impact broadcast ad should be replaced only after the typical listener has heard it at least 12 times, and a low-impact ad should be replaced after achieving a frequency of 20. I arrived at these conclusio ...
Persona-Based Selling - July 10, 2006
We buy what we buy to remind ourselves and tell the world around us who we are.
"Nothing is so powerful as an insight into human nature, what compulsions drive a man, what instincts dominate his action, even though his language so often camouflage ...
Where Do They Bury the Rascals? - July 3, 2006
Colorful and interesting people surround you in life, but in a graveyard, everyone becomes boring: "John Smith. Devoted Husband, Loving Father."
That's it? That's a life remembered?
Where do they bury the interesting people? ...
The Image and The Actual - June 26, 2006
Each letter of the alphabet represents a phoneme, a tiny sound that joins with other tiny sounds to make the more complex sounds we call words.Words are mere shadows cast by ideas. But the ideas they represent are real.
Numerals are images of amou ...
Will You Do It? - June 19, 2006
"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover." – Mark ...
New Things to Get Excited About - June 12, 2006
BANG. Jeffrey and Bryan Eisenberg's new book hits the shelves of every bookstore in America today. Waiting for Your Cat to Bark?
Well, are you?
Many of you have heard me speak about society's 40-year pendulum and how we're c ...
Pregnant with America - June 5, 2006
The most famous quote attributed to Alexis de Tocqueville is, "America is great because she is good, and if America ever ceases to be good, she will cease to be great."Strangely, Tocqueville never said it. He did, however, make a number of astounding ...
Lenny the Misfit - May 29, 2006
Caterina dumps baby Lenny on her boyfriend, then moves to town and gets married to someone else. Neither Lenny's father nor his mother is willing to give Lenny their family name, so he is known only by the name of the mountain under whose shadow ...
Pricing, Value, and Salability - May 22, 2006
Business Proverbs for Business Owners
Pricing – If you're not worried that you're pricing it too cheap, you're not pricing it cheap enough. That's the best advice I can give you about Pricing in a single sentence.
Never ask, "How much might s ...
The Four Faces in Every Store - May 15, 2006
"You can be anything you want to be," was once the anthem of America. But we seem to have twisted that sunlit dream into a shriveled demon that whispers, "Hurry, hurry, hurry and you can be everything you want to be.&qu ...
Will You Change Your Little Corner? - May 8, 2006
Nehemiah is a book of the history of the Jews. Have you ever read it?
450 BC – It is the time of Socrates, just a few years before Plato, Aristotle, and Alexander the Great: Nehemiah is a government worker who becomes distressed with the way t ...
A Very Interesting Ad - May 1, 2006
The doctor's waiting room glowed with old magazines.
As I stood there amidst this strange illumination, I noticed an ad for IBM Consulting that featured an executive woman peering thoughtfully into the distance. In the foreground hung the ...
Sleep Is The New Sex - April 24, 2006
"Men think about it every seven seconds or so. Women romanticize it. Teenagers yearn for the weekends, when they might get a little of it... Sleep is the new sex." – Susan A. Nielsen, journalist for The Oregonian
The National S ...
The Cashier Con - April 17, 2006
I've noticed a disturbing trend. Maybe you have, too:
Cashiers have become the new pitchmen.
The old pitchman came to your door and knocked. He sold encyclopedias or vacuum cleaners or miracle soap. Whatever. But you were trapped by you ...
Hunger of the Candle for the Flame - April 10, 2006
You are a column of wax.
Your purpose began as a spark, a flicker easily ignored. But you didn't ignore it. You turned to face it and your head caught fire.
Grace Hansen admonishes, "Don't be afraid your life will end; be a ...
Outsiders and Thought Particles - April 3, 2006
My computer-programmer friend Akintunde used to spend his Sunday afternoons with Pennie and me. When my audio-book Thought Particles: Binary Code of the Mind was released, Akintunde took home a copy and listened to it several times. We had long talks ...
Thought Particle Technology has Arrived - March 27, 2006
I consider Pandora.com to be the first commercial application of Thought Particle technology. Have you allowed Pandora to read your mind yet?
Pandora.com is a streaming music service crafted by a couple of hundred really serious music experts ...
The Origin of Creativity - March 20, 2006
I like to think God said, "Let there be..." and then paused to think for a moment. Suddenly it came to him, "Light!"
If you accept the book of Genesis, then God is a creator by nature. And he created us in his i ...
Having Arrived at the Endand Forgotten to Live - March 13, 2006
2005 was an amazingly bad year for Pennie and me. Her mother died, my father died, and then we were brought horribly low by a financial surprise with two commas to the left of the decimal point. There was a period of weeks when it looked like all wou ...
Poor Writer's Almanac - March 6, 2006
Writers Seminar, Book Release Party, Call for Submissions
Can you be in Austin on Saturday, April 22?
SEMINAR: We're planning a writer's seminar in palatial Tuscan Hall featuring Chris Maddock, the rarely seen teacher of Advanced Wordsmithing, and Jeff Sexton, the instructor of that a ...
Why Most Ads Put Us to Sleep - February 27, 2006
How often are you conscious of the fact that Earth, only Earth, is buried beneath an ocean of air?We, the fleas that dance on the skin of Mother Earth, live in this dry ocean. We use it to hold our airplanes off the ground. We blow out candles wi ...
Blogs And Reality TV - February 20, 2006
The Changing Face of America
Do you remember when America watched awards shows?
If you were somehow unplugged and didn't receive the newsflash, the combined strength of Paul McCartney, Madonna, U2, Mariah Carey, Coldplay, Faith Hill and Jay-Z wasn't enough ...
Treasure Hunt - February 13, 2006
This week I didn't feel like writing about advertising or business or leadership or anything else an ambitious soul might find useful. So if you're in a vibrating hurry with far too much to do, right here would be the place to stop re ...
Stronger Ads = More Complaints - February 6, 2006
It's no secret that stronger ads generate faster growth. But with each higher level of awareness comes an increase in complaints:
"I'm sick of hearing your ads."
TRANSLATION: "It makes me mad that I can& ...
The American Dream - January 30, 2006
America is a democracy and we believe in free enterprise.
Let's look at that for a moment: Democracy is majority rule. Groupthink. "United we stand, divided we fall." But the key to business – free enterprise – is to ...
The Future of Ad Writing - January 23, 2006
America has been flattered by advertising ("Because you deserve it"), misled by ads ("Lowest prices anywhere"), hyped by ads ("While supplies last"), and lied to repeatedly ("Guaranteed!& ...
The Critical 0.05 Percent - January 16, 2006
It takes 1,800 electrons to equal the mass of a single proton.
Protons and their cousins – neutrons – make up 99.95 percent of the mass in the universe. Yet it's the electrical charges of the seemingly insignificant 0.05 percent – th ...
Inside the Outside - January 9, 2006
It hit me. "I've become an eavesdropper, listening to the conversations of strangers."
It's 5:00AM and I'm sitting at the bar of an all-night café on the wrong side of town eating a three-dollar breakfas ...
Competitive Environment - January 2, 2006
The bottom-rung loser in one town can move to another town and often become the king of his category. All it takes is weak competitors. I've seen it happen a dozen times.Whether you dominate your marketplace won't be determined solely ...
Lonely Outsider - December 26, 2005
I was in the shower when my cell phone started ringing. Pennie answered it for me. It was my partner Jeff Eisenberg.
Dripping, I took the phone. "Yo. Jefferson."
"I'm sending you an article from The Economist. ...
Four Kinds of Ads - December 19, 2005
Great ads can be either product-specific or store-specific. Bad ads are generally category-specific. And then there are franchise ads.
Franchise ads build the master brand. The hope of every franchisee is that the ads provided by the franchisor wi ...
Hi-Def Imagination - December 12, 2005
People tell me they want to learn to think outside the box.
No problemo. The secret is to stay out of the box to begin with.
You crawl into the box when you think about your problem and wrap its known obstacles around you. So quit. Focus instea ...
Are You Merely Determined? - December 5, 2005
Determination is emotional, a moment of intense focus with clenched jaw and the visualization of a mission accomplished.
The sneer is gone from Casey's lip, his teeth are clenched in hate,
He pounds with cruel violence his bat upon the pl ...
What Are You Offering? - November 28, 2005
Businesses don't fail due to reaching the wrong people.
Businesses fail when they say the wrong things.
And they say the wrong things when they believe what the public tells them.
Conduct a survey. Ask the public to describe in deta ...
Do You Need A Miracle? - November 21, 2005
Finances. Relationships. Health... the tall monsters we face in life's dark ocean when we awaken underwater, alone in the night, not knowing what to do.
Ever been there?
People respond to deep crisis in different ways. There are:
1. Ha ...
What Women Want - November 14, 2005
I did a bad, bad thing.
Last week's memo ended too abruptly. "Yes, selling to men can be very easy. But how does one sell to women? Ah. That is a different question. – Roy H. Williams" The phrase, "sell to ...
It's Not Good for Man to be Alone. - November 7, 2005
"The whole nature of man presupposes woman, both physically and spiritually. His system is tuned into woman from the start." – Carl Jung, Two Essays in Analytical Psychology
"What can a man say about woman, his own op ...
How to Buy Word of Mouth - October 31, 2005
The price of making a powerful statement is cheap compared to the cost of ads that don't work. So make a statement that counts. This is the best advice I can give you.
I'm not talking about making a grand and sweeping claim, such a ...
Can You Come Out and Play? - October 24, 2005
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 ...
Does My Local Business Need a Website? - October 17, 2005
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 busin ...
Margaret, Mabel and Jimmy - October 10, 2005
Real Things are Often Bigger than the News
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 ...
Are You Willing to be Weird? - October 3, 2005
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 ...
Fact-Based or Values-Based? - September 26, 2005
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 ...
For Sale: Free Time - September 19, 2005
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, redu ...
Imagine No Delusions - September 12, 2005
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. ...
What Kind of Cat are You? - September 5, 2005
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, &qu ...
Art as a Tool of Marketing - August 29, 2005
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 advert ...
I Did Not Die Today - August 22, 2005
An Introduction to Chaotic Ad Writing
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 ...
A New Kind of Teamwork - August 15, 2005
The Changing Face of Media
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 p ...
Chasing the Carrot on a Stick - August 8, 2005
COURTESY NOTE: This is one of those days when I write about something other than business.
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, &quo ...
Science Proves the Wizard Right Again - August 1, 2005
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 ...
Getting What You Want - July 25, 2005
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 a ...
Perceptual Reality - July 18, 2005
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 ...
Marketplace Realities - July 11, 2005
Is There a Limit to How High You Can Climb?
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 ...
Will He Read The Art of War? - July 4, 2005
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 ...
Our Hurtling World - June 27, 2005
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 World Without Oil - June 20, 2005
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. S ...
Unhappy People - June 13, 2005
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.
Th ...
Are You Putting Lipstick on a Pig? - June 6, 2005
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 taugh ...
Targeting Through Ad Copy - May 30, 2005
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 p ...
Helping to Rebuild an Economy - May 23, 2005
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 install ...
When Numbers Go Bad - May 16, 2005
A longer-than-average Monday Memo, but worth it.
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 ...
Power of Weakness - May 9, 2005
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, &q ...
The Power of Purpose - May 2, 2005
"...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?'" ...
Counter-Branding - April 25, 2005
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& ...
Power of the Buzz - April 18, 2005
Bryan and Jeff Eisenberg have a New Book
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 Wo ...
Belly of the Whale - April 11, 2005
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-mi ...
Follow-Up from April 4, 2005 Memo - April 4, 2005
IT ALL STARTED WHEN I RECEIVED THIS EMAIL FROM BRETT FEINSTEIN IN RESPONSE TO MY APRIL 4 MEMO:
Roy,
Read today's memo with interest. This is a constant battle I deal with.
Length of copy is not really a relevant discussion with radio an ...
Advertising, Like Reduction Sauce - April 4, 2005
A Monday Morning Memo from The Wizard of Ads
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 ho ...
Canadian Diamond Pavilion - April 2, 2005
funded by the staff of Spence Diamonds of Canada
Future Project. Will Open in Late 2006.
Situated just down the walking trail from Chapel Dulcinea,the Canadian Diamond Pavilion will be a placewhere wedding receptions can be held at no charge. Designed by architect Marley Porter, the base of the pa ...
Adventure - April 1, 2005
begins with dedication to a cause
"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,'' ...
Advertising, Like Paint - March 28, 2005
"The thing that has been will be again." And other 8-Word Answers.
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& ...
Where Have Your Fingers Been Walking Lately? - March 21, 2005
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 ...
The New Marketplace - March 14, 2005
NOTICE: This memo ends with a link to an ad-writing course description. So don't be surprised.
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.& ...
Jonah - March 11, 2005
New Revised Standard Version
[Jonah 1]
1 Now the word of the LORD came to Jonah son of Amittai, saying, 2 "Go at once to Nineveh, that great city, and cry out against it; for their wickedness has come up before me." 3 But Jonah set out to flee to Tarshish fr ...
Mountain Without Summit - March 7, 2005
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 fou ...
Wedding Chapel Dulcinea - March 1, 2005
Who is Dulcinea?
(Dul – sin – AY - uh)
She is Tom Sawyer's Becky Thatcher. She is The Little Red-Haired Girl of Charlie Brown. She is the sacred muse of Alonso Quixano who in 1605 stepped into some rusty armor to become the immortal Don Quixote de
l ...
The Quixote Collection - February 28, 2005
Tuscan Hall in Austin, Texas, is home to what is possibly the largest gathering of Don Quixote fine art in the world. The collection includes dozens of unique items, including a hand-signed Picasso, an authentic Dali, a massive 1930s wood sculpture f ...
Pattern Recognition - February 28, 2005
"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 link ...
Confidence - February 21, 2005
Where to Get It and How To Keep It
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 attitu ...
Running with the Beagle in my Brain - February 14, 2005
A Politically Incorrect Search for Adventure
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 ...
Your Life is a Journey - February 7, 2005
But where is it taking you?
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 ...
Climbing the Hill Too High - January 31, 2005
Niche 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 ...
Voices of Dissent - January 24, 2005
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 ...
The Gift of 500 Years - January 17, 2005
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 n ...
Before You Begin Writing Those Ads... - January 10, 2005
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 adverti ...
Thoughts to Think - January 3, 2005
In the New Year
"You've heard that before you die, your whole life flashes before your eyes? This is true. It's called living."
I'd love to take credit for that line, but I lifted it from an obscure novel by Terry Pra ...
Success Through Discontent - December 27, 2004
Success is conceived in the womb of the mind the moment you look around and say, "I don't belong here. These are not my people." And it is born when you cogently express - to yourself and to the world - who you really are.
...
At The Heart of Romance - December 20, 2004
From Claude Monet's impressionistic portrait of his wife and son, to Sue Monk Kidd's tender book, The Secret Life of Bees, to the nosecones of bombers and the biceps of bikers, to the garish and awkward Miss America pageant, we contin ...
MIT Study Proves Us Right! - December 13, 2004
I've been telling you (March 25, 2002) and telling you (Feb. 10, 2003) that:
1. transactional customers are bargain hunters, and
2. brands are built on relational customers, and
3. the split between transactional and relational shoppers ...
Steppe Beyond Time - December 6, 2004
The steppe is a belt of grassland extending 5,000 miles from European Hungary through Ukraine across Central Asia to reach its end in Chinese Manchuria. Mountain ranges divide the steppe into distinct segments but horsemen cross such barriers with ea ...
Courageous and Smart - November 29, 2004
Keep Your Eye on Rushkoff and Pitts
Leonard Pitts tackles ticklish topics with reckless audacity and elegant grace. Three years ago I said to Princess Pennie, "This guy is one of America's greatest living writers. Sooner or later he's going to become a very big ...
Marketing Without Media - November 22, 2004
Hear no Advertising. See no Advertising. Speak no Advertising.
I think we've had our fill of ads. And by "we," I mean the entire population of the twenty-first century. That's a dangerous and controversial statement coming from a man known as The Wizard of Ads, wouldn't ...
Hit Machine - November 15, 2004
They had more #1 records than the Beatles, the Beach Boys, the Rolling Stones and Elvis Presley combined. And you've probably never heard of them. The Funk Brothers were 13 ragamuffin musicians who laid down the signature keyboard blitzes, gu ...
Buckle Up for 2005 - November 8, 2004
Wow. I just spent 37 minutes previewing a Sunpop video soon to be released by Wizard Academy Press. Selling Customers Their Way features my partner Jeffrey Eisenberg with psychologist Dr. Richard D. Grant in an amazing discussion about high-level, fa ...
Marketing in 2005 and Beyond - November 1, 2004
The Age of The Baby Boomer ended in 2003. The torch has been handed to a new
generation with new ideas and values. Sure, we Boomers still hold the power at
the top, but the prevailing worldview that drives our nation is completely other
than th ...
Deconstructing a Great Ad - October 25, 2004
Transactional and Relational are the two styles of selling and the two modes
of buying.
Customers in Transactional mode are concerned only with today's transaction.
They enjoy the process of shopping, comparing, and negotiating. Their ...
New Definition: Deconstruction - October 18, 2004
Gosh. I've been using the word "deconstruction" incorrectly and words are
important to me.
Sunday, Oct 10, 2004 – A New York Times story reporting the death
of Jacques Derrida is headlined, "Celebrated Phi ...
Keep the Cheese - October 11, 2004
Have you ever been in a place and wanted out of it? A place in your life I
mean? A time when you decided, "You can keep the cheese, just let me out of the
trap?"
Being out of the trap is good.
In 1977 David A ...
The New Selling - October 4, 2004
Ask a roomful of people to give you all the words they associate with "salesman" and they will immediately say, "pushy, manipulative, slick, self-serving, phony," and a list of other things no mother wants her chil ...
Two Worlds - September 27, 2004
A couple of weeks ago I wrote to you about differing perceptions of time, Chaotic, Linear, and Cyclical, and closed by saying, "There is a fourth perception of time that's shared by all of us; the time of the mind, imaginary time, mo ...
Scent Memory - September 20, 2004
A lot of people have been telling me lately that they remember hearing or
reading somewhere "that our sense of smell is the easiest of our senses to
recall." This is most likely due to the new TV ad for Red Zone deodorant that
...
Our Perceptions of Time - September 13, 2004
How do you see time? Do you see it as:
1. Chaotic - things happen randomly; history has no path?
2. Linear - history has a path and it is straight and fixed?
3. Cyclical - that which has been will be again, because history's pa ...
In a Box in the Closet... - September 6, 2004
Thelma Toole believed in the talent of her son, though no one else could see
it. And as mothers are wont to do, she pestered important people to take a look
at 'the marvelous thing' her darling baby boy had written. She was
syst ...
Doing Well vs. Doing Good - August 30, 2004
Donald Trump has been doing well all his life. But Agnes Bojaxhiu spent her life doing good.
Born in Skopje, Macedonia in 1910, Agnes was 21 when she began
teaching school in a bad part of town. Looking outside her door each day, Agnes saw such ...
A Window to the Future - August 23, 2004
When I presented my latest research to a theater full of businesspeople and
advertising professionals in Stockholm, Sweden, a number of them immediately
bought plane tickets to cross the Atlantic for the full Wizard Academy
experience. (To meet ...
The Great Ad Myth - August 16, 2004
Ads are like houses. You can do a good job constructing a badly
designed house, but when you're through, you've still got a badly designed
house. It doesn't matter how good you are with a hammer and a saw when the
bluepr ...
When Will My Ads Start Working? - August 9, 2004
The length of the "ramping up period" an ad campaign will require before you
begin to see results is determined by the following factors, listed in
descending order of their importance:
Product Purchase Cycle
Share of Voic ...
Happiness is... - August 2, 2004
Let's begin by defining what happiness is not. Pleasure, fleeting pleasure, is
not happiness. Likewise, momentary joy isn't happiness either. For "happy," Webster gives
us three meanings:
notably fitting, eff ...
When a Customer Asks "How Much?" - July 26, 2004
Generally speaking, it's best to establish the value of a thing before you
name its price. But when a customer asks, "How much?" they want to hear a
number. To precede that number with a probing question or a qualify ...
Socioquake - July 19, 2004
Pennie and I were eating breakfast in Sydney, Australia, with our partners
Craig and Angela
Arthur (photo above) when Ange began singing, "We're happy little Vegemites, as bright
as bright can be. We all enjoy our Vegemite for b ...
Da Vinci Code Revisited - July 12, 2004
The success of The Da Vinci Code has triggered new interest in the
sacred feminine. No, I'm not endorsing Dan Brown's tiresome view of the sacred
feminine being preserved through earth-rituals involving the deification of
Gaia, ...
Magnetic Power of the Mental Image - July 5, 2004
I recently wrote a Monday Morning Memo called Just a Regular Guy about how Chuck Wepner's fight against Muhammad Ali provided the inspiration for Sylvester Stallone to peck out the screenplay of Rocky, a low-budget film that, against all odds, ...
Just Over the Horizon - June 28, 2004
The horizon is an imaginary line that recedes as you approach it. Happiness is
like that for some people. Are you one of them? Do you think of happiness as
being out there for you "someday, maybe, as soon as...?" As a yo ...
Just a Regular Guy - June 21, 2004
As a boxer, Chuck Wepner earned the nickname "The Bayonne Bleeder" because of the punishment he took even while winning. Tom Donelson of Inside Boxing writes of him, "Wepner was what one would call 'a catcher', a fighter who ...
The Feel of Real - June 14, 2004
In her 1991 book, The Popcorn Report, Faith Popcorn wrote of a trend
called Fantasy Adventure: "What is Fantasy Adventure exactly? It's vicarious
escape through consumerism, catharsis through consumption. It's a momen ...
The New Branding - June 7, 2004
Most branding campaigns are costumes worn by advertisers to the Media Masquerade
Ball. They were the hot ticket during the pretentious Baby Boomer years when
blue ribbons were awarded to those with best costumes, but look around and
you' ...
Media's Missing Mass - May 31, 2004
Back in the days when every teenage boy dreamed of outrunning a police
cruiser, the wisdom handed down from aging speedsters was, "Remember son, you
can't outrun them radios." The fact that policemen were constantly conn ...
The Future of Advertising - May 24, 2004
An Open Letter to Advertisers from The Wizard of Ads
Google tells me it was the often-quoted Greek orator, Anonymous, who first
said, "The only thing constant is change."
Though I agree that change is ever with us, it cannot be said that it's truly
"constant,& ...
The Value of Misfits - May 17, 2004
Next week I'm going to write about The Future of Advertising, I promise. (I'm aware that many
of you endure my odd wanderings into the Forest of Contemplation only because you
know that I will sooner or later return to deliver a v ...
Family Values vs. Business Values - May 10, 2004
Since most arguments result from a lack of definition of terms, let me define
for you what I mean by "family values versus business values": Unconditional acceptance and equality are family values. Performance-based
acceptance a ...
Stagolee Shot Billy and Bojangles Danced - May 3, 2004
The song "Stagolee" has been wailed by Fats Domino, Wilson Pickett and the
great James Brown. Bob Dylan, Neil Diamond, Huey Lewis and the Grateful Dead
have all taken turns as well.
Strangely, the story is true.
It happe ...
Shoestring Marketing for the One Man Band - April 26, 2004
A wonderful tribe of strange visionaries who threw caution to the wind, flinging themselves into an economic unknown, created our American economy. I speak of the brave individuals who started their own businesses on a shoestring and a prayer. Althou ...
Roy's Bizarre Theory of Books - April 19, 2004
When one of my business partners,
Michele Miller,
mentioned that she'd just read a good book about writing called Bird by Bird,
I quietly found the title at amazon.com and clicked the button that would rocket
a copy toward me. The book ...
Languages of the Eye - April 12, 2004
In chapter 6 of Magical Worlds of the Wizard of Ads I quote professor
Neil Postman as saying, "What we think of as 'reasoning' is determined by the
character of our language. To reason in Japanese is not the same thing as ...
Prisoner of Shadows - April 5, 2004
Do you have plans and dreams "but now is not a good time" to get started on them? Are your hands and
feet bound by memories of yesterday and fears of tomorrow? Have you been living
as a prisoner of shadows?
NEWS F ...
Surface, Motive, Essence - March 29, 2004
Everything in life can be evaluated in 3 ways:
1. by Surface
2. by Motive
3. by Essence
Surface tells us what a thing is. Or it lets us know what has
happened. We see Surface with perfect clarity. But does it tell the whole truth?
Why ...
Name Recognition isn't Branding - March 22, 2004
"Getting your name out" isn't worth much when there's no mental image attached
to your name. Unaided recall and top-of-mind awareness are excellent ways to
measure name recognition, but they don't tell yo ...
Business Model No. 4: Path Dominance - March 15, 2004
Inventory Management, Proprietary Product, and Custom are the first 3 business models. The last, number 4, is Path Dominance.
Like water, Path Dominance silently follows the path of least resistance, going to where there is no competition and th ...
Business Models No. 2 and 3 - March 8, 2004
When I wrote to you recently about the business model I call "Inventory
Management," I mentioned that it was just 1 of the 4 universally successful
business models. Having now received 527 emails asking about the other 3
busin ...
We Are Sancho Panza - March 7, 2004
A Happy Message from the Gospel of Don
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 Don Quixote is the second most widely-read book on earth; second only to, yes, ...
Gift of a Jew - March 1, 2004
1933: America is drowning in the depths of the Great Depression when Max
Gaines loses his job as a novelties salesman and is forced to move into his
mother's house with his wife and two small children. As he lays his battered
suitcase o ...
It Ain't Always the Ads that Do It - February 23, 2004
We Americans enjoy intensely romantic dates and wonderfully lavish weddings,
don't we? It's the American way - hot and breathless, dripping with
anticipation. And we have the world's highest divorce rate. This, too, se ...
Convergence: Alan, Herbert, and Harry - February 16, 2004
1887: Alan Alexander is a 5 year-old boy in England and Herbert Wells is his teacher. Harry Colebourn will be born this year, not many miles away. Although Alan and Harry will both live to become old and gray, the two will never meet.
1893: Her ...
Duality - February 9, 2004
"Proverbs contradict each other. That is the wisdom of a people." - Stanislaw
Lec
We've said it in a thousand different ways for a thousand different years. Isaac
Newton said it famously: "For every action t ...
Shock and Awe - February 2, 2004
Do you remember watching what appeared to be Fourth of July fireworks as newscasters kept repeating, "This is the shock and awe part of the invasion. This is shock and awe?" Do you remember how the Iraqis seemed to be neither sh ...
The Look of 2004 - January 26, 2004
It appears that 2004 will be the year that the new Wizard Academy campus will be built. Princess Pennie and I are currently choosing between 3 pieces of property – each with a spectacular view – and the smallest is 21 acres. Construction will beg ...
The Confusion of Nemo Chapman - January 19, 2004
Nemo Chapman was a teenager devoted to the South De Kalb County YMCA, "a guy down on one knee helping out a little kid, or with kids just hanging around his neck, following him everywhere he went." When Nemo was presented with the award f ...
The Death of Hype - January 12, 2004
Fourteen weeks ago I wrote you a memo that said, "The bad news is that it's going to get harder and harder to make ads work. The good news is that advertisers are going to have to become a lot more honest. The generation that will so ...
Art Marketing - January 5, 2004
Don't be confused by the title; we're not talking about "the Art of Marketing" today. We're talking about the marketing of art.
Last week I wrote to you about ritual, one of the languages in Symbolic thoug ...
The Language of Ritual - December 29, 2003
According to cognitive neuroscientist Dr. Ricardo Gattass, the 4 kinds of thought are Verbal, Abstract, Analytical and Symbolic.
I believe Ritual to be one of the most powerful languages of Symbolic thought.
Like myself, you probably grew up ...
What's Your Story? - December 22, 2003
Do you remember the pivotal moment when your foot first felt the path you walk?
My moment came when Charlie Myers grasped my hand, slapped a ten-dollar bill into it and said,
"I think it's a great idea and I want to help. D ...
1963 All Over Again - December 15, 2003
December, 2003: We're about to finish 1963 for the second time.
Forty years is how long a true "generation" stays in power, during which time social change will be evolutionary, rather than revolutionary. But in the waning years of e ...
Soul Searching - December 8, 2003
"Men who believe themselves to be good, who do not search their own souls, often commit the worst atrocities. A man who sees himself as evil will restrain himself. It is only when we do evil in the belief that we do good that we pursue it wh ...
In a Tux at the Waldorf-Astoria - December 7, 2003
The True Story of how the Wizard of Ads met the King of Journalists
Princess Pennie anxiously studied the program as I looked over her shoulder. "Maybe a page fell out," I said, "maybe our names were on a page that fell out."
"No," she answered slowly, & ...
Your Seat in the Stadium of Life - December 1, 2003
Regardless of how many people suggest that you start thinking "outside the box," it cannot in truth be done. As long as you are living within your skin, you will always be in a box.
Your box is your perspective, your worldview, ...
Swimming in an Ocean of Robots - November 24, 2003
"Every man with a new idea is a crank until the idea succeeds."
- Mark Twain
"The dissenter is every human at those moments of his life when he resigns momentarily from the herd and thinks for himself."
- Arch ...
Japanese Sunshine - November 17, 2003
As Japan rose from the rubble of a devastating world war, Masaru Ibuka and his partner opened a repair shop among the broken fragments that once were Tokyo. They called their shop "Tokyo Tsushin Kogyo" and said its purpose would be ...
The Making of a Brand - November 10, 2003
Rugged, strong and self-assured, John Wayne embodied the values that American males held dear in the 1940s, 50s, and 60s. In his footsteps followed Clint Eastwood (Dirty Harry,) Bruce Willis (Die Hard,) and now Keanu Reeves (The Matrix.)
But Ameri ...
Me and My Man Morris - November 3, 2003
Do you know your company's percentage of unaided recall? In other words, what percentage of your prospective customers will think of you as a possible option when your business category is named?
If less than 10 percent of your p ...
Eisuke's Little Girl - October 27, 2003
Eisuke had a university degree in economics and another in mathematics, but his true love was his music. His wife, Isoko, was the granddaughter of Zenjiro Yasuda, the founder of the Yasuda Bank and one of the world's richest men. Zenjiro Yasuda ...
Remove Your Limiting Factor - October 20, 2003
The majority of business owners say they believe in "customer service," "service after the sale," and "exceeding the customer's expectations." But how many of them actually do it?
...
Point of the Curve - October 13, 2003
You've met people who stayed ahead of the curve. Perhaps you live at the curve's edge yourself - always the first to try a new thing and then the first to move on. You've also met people who drag along at the tail of the curve ...
Not Enough Customers? - October 6, 2003
Low store traffic is only a symptom, not the disease. And if advertising could always cure the disease, then advertising would always increase traffic. But advertising doesn't always work. The traditional excuse is, "We must be reach ...
Secret Hiding Place - September 29, 2003
Inept at almost everything, Little Elias was ridiculed and scorned by his father virtually every day. His only place to hide was in the secret world of his mind - a place of imaginary friends too wonderful to describe.
During the summer ...
Demise of the Yellow Pages - September 22, 2003
New York City, 1886: As dock workers uncrated the Statue of Liberty, Richard Sears was busy launching the company that would create catalog shopping in America, John Pemberton was mixing his first batch of Coca-Cola, and Gottlieb Daimler was tighteni ...
Cohen of China - September 15, 2003
"The bullet that caught me in the left arm had made me think. Supposing it had been my right arm and I carried my gun that side, I'd not have been able to use it. As soon as we got back to Canton I got me a second gun, another Smith ...
Different Strokes for Different Folks - September 8, 2003
Ever wonder how some people can love an ad that you hate with a purple passion?
Even the best ads miss the mark by a mile with at least half their target audience. Ads are like music;
a distinctiv ...
Voices of the Great Ones - September 6, 2003
Click the image to hear other voices
As I sat secure in the silence, a jeep scuffed to a stop on the road and good Charley left his work and roared. A young man in boots, corduroys, and a red and black checked mackinaw climbed out and strode near. He spoke in the harsh unfriendly tone ...
Voices of the Great Ones - September 5, 2003
Click the image to hear other voices
And then the rains came.
They came down from the hills and up from the Sound.
And it rained a sickness. And it rained a fear. And it rained an odor. And it rained a murder. And it rained pale eggs of the beast.
Rain fell on the ...
Voices of the Great Ones - September 4, 2003
Click the image to hear other voices
"World-class cereal-eating is a dance of fine compromises. The giant heaping bowl of sodden cereal, awash in milk, is the mark of the novice. Ideally one wants the bone-dry cereal nuggets and the cryogenic milk to enter the mouth with minimal contact ...
The Real Ichabod Crane - September 1, 2003
"He was tall, but exceedingly lank, with narrow shoulders, long arms and legs, hands that dangled a mile out of his sleeves, feet that might have served for shovels, and his whole frame most loosely hung together. His head was small, and fla ...
Names: A Marketing Myth - August 25, 2003
You're at a conference table half a century ago with Zora Arkus-Duntov. He's looking for a name for Chevy's sexy new sports car. Someone says "How about Corvette Stingray?" Zora says, "I like it. ...
That Rascal Tom - August 18, 2003
Tom was sent to prison for rustling cattle, poaching, extortion, robbery and attempted murder. But Tom was sneaky enough to escape from prison. Not once, but
twice. Such a rascal was he that when the government began pardoning whole cell ...
Selling to Introverts - August 11, 2003
The ratio of extraverts to introverts in our nation is 50.5 to 49.5 percent. So why do sales trainers assume that every customer is extraverted?
Extraverts like to engage you verbally, believing that dialog pr ...
Looking into the Crystal Ball - August 4, 2003
The business world consists of little islands in oceans of economy. Cities and regions are the islands, where merchants are affected by every layoff and expansion of a major employer. Nations are the oceans, barely navigable tides of inexorable force ...
Invisible Hero - July 28, 2003
We remember John Steinbeck as the Nobel Prize winning novelist of Grapes of
Wrath, Cannery Row, Of Mice and Men, East of
Eden, and Tortilla Flat. But we know little else about him. His too-much fame has kept us from see ...
When Change is in the Air - July 21, 2003
The prophet wanders in from the desert crying, "I have seen. I have seen. We must change." And as the people listen with mounting interest, leadership plots to kill him. This is the way it has always been: Julius Caesar. William Wal ...
Want to Quit Driving the Rutmobile? - July 14, 2003
Abraham Maslow called it "self-actualization." A funny term, that. I never quite understood its meaning until I realized that to "actualize" a television set is simply to press the button that activates it and turn ...
Do You Have a Sword in the Stone? - July 7, 2003
The Sword in the Stone, Excalibur, was the symbol of everything Camelot stood for. It was the axis around which every decision revolved and it embodied all the values the people held dear. And no one could remove the sword from its place except Arthu ...
Ads, Bulls, Bosses and You - June 30, 2003
Some of my best advertising strategies were never implemented because I foolishly designed them around "what I would do" if I owned my client's company. But I didn't own his company. He did. Do you want to build a re ...
Syndicated Advertising - June 23, 2003
Dear Mr. Gibb,
You indicated in your email that you are a journalist researching the features and benefits of a specific syndicated advertising program. Hopefully, my comments and observations will be useful to ...
Moongrave Starmonkey - June 16, 2003
The Longest Monday Morning Memo Ever Sent and Perhaps the Least Useful But I Think You Might Like It Anyway.
In The Wizard of Ads he was the hero of chapter 59, Silver Paint and a
Weed-Eater. Secret Formulas ...
The Natural Advantages of Women - June 9, 2003
"If fifty-million people say a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing." - Anatole France
For decades we've been taught that "above the neck, there is no difference between a woman and ...
So You Want to be a Writer - June 2, 2003
Millions of people have ideas for books - plans to write books - hopes, dreams and aspirations about books, but very few of them are actually
writing books. If you want to write, here is some sage advice from some of the world's ...
Foolish Things We Believe - May 26, 2003
An email was recently passed along to me by one of my readers that said, "Some months ago you alluded to research being done that would reveal the fact that things 'you heard' were as or more effective than things you saw.
...
Remember You Heard it Here First - May 19, 2003
"Claims made by scientists, in contrast to claims made by movie critics or theologians, can be separated from the scientists who make them. It isn't important to know who Isaac Newton was. He discovered that force is equal to mass ti ...
Feynman's Pendulum - May 12, 2003
Well, I did it.
I actually did it.
I put the lime in the coconut and drank'em both together. I put the lime in the coconut; it made me feel better.
Seriously, ...
An Advertiser's Question - May 5, 2003
Q: I'm a 52-week radio advertiser currently reaching 32% of my area's 18-34 population with a frequency of 2.9 each week, 52 weeks in a row. (I know you teach that weekly frequency should be at least 3.0, but I figured 2.9 was
...
Do You Have Too Many Employees? - April 28, 2003
When a young man asked Margaret Thatcher if she had any advice that might help him rise to his full potential, she fixed him deep in her steady gaze and said, "Stay a little bit hungry and a little bit cold."
...
Making Good Stuff Great - April 21, 2003
Adding a Third Gravitating Body
When a meal, a painting, a movie or an ad seems a little flat and boring, the likely culprit is insufficient divergence. Most creators, whether chefs, artists, cinematographers or ad writers, instinctively add what "feels right" thr ...
I Just Don't Have the Time - April 14, 2003
"I just don't have the time..."
What would you create if you were given 250, 14-hour days to do it? Would you write a book or screenplay? Study a complex concept? Become fluent in a for ...
How to Become an Expert - April 7, 2003
You want to know how to become a world-renowned expert? It's easy, really. All you have to do is:
1. Look around until you find something that interests you.
2. Think about it a lot.
...
When Good Ads Fail - March 31, 2003
You ran an inspired series of wonderful ads.
And got nothing in return.
What?
Like so many Sir Galahads on the quest for the Holy Grail, businesspeople continue to ...
Advertising In Time of War - March 24, 2003
Q:I'd like to show my support of our men and women serving overseas and would appreciate suggestions on how to go about doing this in my ads.
A: Step One - think of everything that you'd like to say to our b ...
So What's the Next Move? - March 17, 2003
When a businessperson asks, "Here's where I am right now; so what's the next step?" they expect me to be able to answer them. But I've never been able to do it. Questions about & ...
Sneak Preview - March 10, 2003
Sundown in Muskogee - (a new work of fiction) - chapter 1
It's ten after four in the morning and I just woke up because I finally figured it out. Forty-four years old, in my sleep, I figured it out.
They called him "Sundown" because he was di ...
Hearing the Music of Rainbows - February 24, 2003
Humans are neurologically gifted to attach complex meanings to sounds. Specialized mouth-sounds called phonemes enter our ears and are immediately directed into Wernicke's area where they slip down the arcuate fasciculus (a neural pipeline) t ...
A Society and Its Heroes - February 17, 2003
Heroes are dangerous things. Bigger than life, highly exaggerated and always positioned in the most favorable light, a hero is a beautiful lie.
Did George Washington really chop down a cherry tree and then confess to his ...
Transactional and Relational Redux - February 10, 2003
The recent MMMemo, 2003: Year of the Internet's Bar Mitzvah, merged with last week's memo about Boomers and Xers, can be combined with the following Transactional/Relational shopping-style analysis to give you a revealing glimpse into ...
Two Ways of Looking at the Truth - February 3, 2003
A Monday Morning Memo from the Wizard at wizardacademy.org
The legendary Richard Feynman, winner of the Nobel Prize for physics, was unlike other physicists in that he didn't consider the truth to be viewable only through the micro-lens of current conditions. In fact, he laughed at the naiveté of su ...
Josie's Third Gravitating Tangerine - January 27, 2003
The Monday Morning Memo from wizardacademy.org
Just before the holidays, JG Tornoe received this interesting email from one of our students:Hi JG,As I was setting up this still life, arranging the tangerines around the pitcher, I was thinking of the academy and some of the concepts we learned abo ...
Societal Metamorphosis - January 20, 2003
The Monday Morning Memo from Wizard Academy.com
Russell Taylor is a real-life example of how our society is quietly going digital. Taylor is a university-degreed geographer who is also a husband and a homeowner at the tender age of 24: "I can't believe that a city the size of Aust ...
2003: Year of the Internet's Bar Mitzvah - January 13, 2003
The Monday Morning Memo from wizardacademy.org
For a period of about 3 1/2 years (from late '96 to mid 2000,) the first question I was asked following every public session I taught was "What about the internet?" My answer never changed: "The internet is a ba ...
Have You Ever Really Thought about It? - January 6, 2003
The Monday Morning Memo from wizardacademy.org
During his time on the hot seat at Wizard Academy, author Russell Friedman made an interesting observation about coping with success: "We must reconstruct our identity with every fundamental change in our lives& Because it is not familia ...
Shadow of an Unspoken Question - December 30, 2002
The Monday Morning Memo from wizardacademy.org
Every sales presentation should answer the customer's question, "What's in it for me?" This question is often unspoken and may even be unconscious in the customer's mind, but it's always there, ca ...
See the Angel? - December 23, 2002
The Monday Morning Memo from wizardacademy.org
"The greater danger, for most of us, lies not in setting our aim too high and falling short; but in setting our aim too low, and achieving our mark... Lord, grant that I may always desire more than I can accomplish." - Michelangelo& ...
Swimming in the Sky - December 16, 2002
The Monday Morning Memo from wizardacademy.org
We live in the air and sunlight of the conscious mind. So when I wrote to you recently that the unconscious mind is an ocean, dark and deep, and that our conscious awareness is merely a sea journey on its surface, that metaphor was not chosen by acci ...
Are You Normal? - December 9, 2002
The Monday Morning Memo
"Everybody wants to be normal, but no one wants to be average." But isn't normal synonymous with average? Don't both words mean basically the same thing?I recently wrote to you that misunderstandings often ar ...
Life is a Carnival Ride - December 1, 2002
The Monday Morning Memo from wizardacademy.org
"Life is truly a ride. We're all strapped in and no one can stop it.... I think that the most you can hope for at the end of life is that your hair's messed, you're out of breath, and you didn't throw up.& ...
Are You Happy? - November 25, 2002
The Monday Morning Memo
Misunderstandings are often the result of a lack of definition of terms. When two people define a term differently without realizing it, they can argue for hours without ever moving closer to resolution. I'll bet you've seen it happen ...
Who the Heck is Kary Mullis, anyway? - November 17, 2002
The Monday Morning Memo from wizardacademy.org
I was reading a collection of quotes recently when I discovered one that made me smile: "There is a general place in your brain, I think, reserved for 'melancholy of relationships past.' It grows and prospers as life progress ...
What do Rich People have in Common? - November 11, 2002
The Monday Morning Memo from wizardacademy.org
Okay then, besides having a lot of money, what do rich people have in common? No, it's not intelligence or education. Look around. The world is littered with unrewarded geniuses and every store has at least one clerk with a master' ...
Radio as Taught by Wizard Academy - November 3, 2002
The Monday Morning Memo from wizardacademy.org
Why is it that when you're driving and looking for an address, you turn down the volume on the radio? Ever stopped to think about it?You can close your eyes, but you cannot close your ears. Sound is invasive, intrusive and irresistibl ...
Exponential Little Bits - October 27, 2002
The Monday Morning Memo from wizardacademy.org
Makers of miracles have magical little helpers. Is there a miracle you'd like to make?
Would you like to learn the magic of the elbs?
Elbs are Exponential Little Bits, tiny but relentless changes that compound to make a miracle. The power of ...
The Meaning of Life - October 20, 2002
The Monday Morning Memo from wizardacademy.org
I named them "The Fearless Flyers" because each of them boarded an empty jet shortly after the attacks on the World Trade Center. They were Chet Young from Iowa, Dick Taylor from New Jersey, Akintunde Omitowaju from Nigeria and Dr. ...
A Glimpse of Things to Come - October 14, 2002
The Monday Morning Memo from wizardacademy.org
From: "Brett Feinstein"Date: Wed, 9 Oct 2002 06:19:59To: "Roy H. Williams"Subject: Not sure how to track this down but... My partner, Jamie, called me today to say he had been watching theToday Show yesterday (Wedn ...
Wanna Help Make a Movie? - October 7, 2002
A Monday Morning Memo from wizardacademy.org
The principal difference between a salesman and a consultant is that a salesman believes "the customer is always right." But a consultant is paid to tell you the truth even when you don't want to hear it. People either love ...
"Houston... the Beagle has Landed." - September 30, 2002
A Monday Morning Memo from wizardacademy.org
I'll bet you thought Neil Armstrong said "Eagle," didn't you?When the commander of the Apollo 11 mission announced thelunar arrival of the Beagle on July 20, 1969, the world held itscollective breath in anticipat ...
Will Rogers and the Shoemaker's Kids - September 22, 2002
Your Monday Morning Memo from wizardacademy.org
Will Rogers, that most famous of Oklahomans, was once asked if he could speak for five minutes at a luncheon. "No problem," said Will, "when do you need me to do it?" "Tomorrow at noon," came ...
Might Isaac Newton Have Been Wrong? - September 16, 2002
The Sequel to Last Week's MMMemo, "Have You Been Kicking the Box?"
You've long been told, "For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction." But it isn't true. When a person expresses love, where is the necessary "equal and opposite reaction" then? Ne ...
Have You Been Kicking the Box? - September 9, 2002
The Sequel to Last Week's MMMemo, "Beware Your Metaphors"
There's really no such thing as "thinking outside the box." But we can select a different box to think in. Your box is your business model, your world-view, your paradigm. It is the framework of the metaphor that you use to ...
Beware Your Metaphors - September 2, 2002
A MMMemo about the Subtle Power of Symbolic Thought
"Life is a bowl of cherries; beneath a thin layer of sweet stuff, it's mostly just the pits." "When life hands you lemons, make lemonade." "Plan against both the most probable and the most dangerou ...
Encourager of Others - August 25, 2002
The Monday Morning Sequel to Last Week's Memo, "Eddie's Song"
The world's most widely recognized sculpture, The Thinker, would probably never have come into existence had Rodin not received encouragement from a poor Scottish lad named William Henley. The son of an obscure bookseller, William was afflict ...
Eddie's Song - August 19, 2002
A Monday Morning Memo in Three Part Harmony, from www.WizardofAds.com
Have you ever heard someone singing a song and then found yourself singing it all the rest of that day? Songs are funny things, even when they're not sung to music. Sing words of victory and you'll soon start feeling triumphant.. ...
Timing Isn't Everything, (but it helps.) - August 11, 2002
A Memo for a Tightly Compactified Monday Morning When You're Probably Too Busy to Read It.
Ever notice how easily you spend money during the weekends or when you're on vacation? Carpe Diem. Enjoy the moment. Your fantasy life won't be over until you get back to the Office on Monday morning.Actually, that's not ...
The Longest 1,000 Days - August 5, 2002
A Monday Morning Memo for Those Who are Feeling a Little Bit Battered
Have you ever experienced a window of time in which everything went wrong simultaneously? You take a small step forward and a nail punctures your foot. You take another step, looking down this time, and bang your head on a low-hanging potted plan ...
Singularity - July 29, 2002
The Prequel to last week's MMMemo, "fEinstein's Assertion"
In last week's memo we spoke of the duality of the universe, otherwise known as The Law of Two. Likewise, this week's memo could easily be titled, The Law of One. This Law of Singularity was powerfully communicated in the movie City S ...
fEinstein's Assertion - July 22, 2002
A Bold Attempt to Crawl Out to the Fruit on the Skinny Part of the Branch
"David Sklansky and Mason Malmuth are a pair of authors whose poker books revolutionized the game. They are, far and away, the best theorists and writers about poker ever. Yet reading Sklansky and Malmuth will not make you a winning poker pl ...
Patterns within Patterns, All around You - July 15, 2002
The Wizard's Final Attempt at a Simple Explanation of the Third Body Problem
It happened again last week; I accidentally used the term, "third gravitating body" and was immediately asked for an explanation. Sigh. I really need to quit doing that. The unavoidable truth is that it takes at least two hours and ...
Rainy Fourth of July - July 8, 2002
(Musings Found in an Old Trunk in the Attic of the Wizard's Castle)
"The sun did not shine. It was too wet to play. So we sat in the house all that cold, cold wet day. I sat there with Sally. We sat there, we two. And I said, 'How I wish we had something to do!' Too wet to go out and too cold ...
A Dollar a Person a Year - July 1, 2002
A Well-Kept Secret of the Wizard at www.WizardofAds.com
More than half a million people have read the book, seen the video, or attended the seminar in which I say, "Involuntary long-term memory, or 'branding,' is dependent upon saliency (relevance of ad copy) and the ratio of ad r ...
Creativity Cubed - June 24, 2002
A Monday Morning Memo from the Wizard at www.WizardofAds.com
"Ideas are the product of connections, both logical and illogical. Effective creativity is a merger of these logical and illogical thoughts together to form revolutionary new strategies and plans. Sadly, most Americans focus only on what has ...
What a Novel Idea. - June 17, 2002
A Monday Morning Memo from the Wizard at www.WizardofAds.com
"The novel as we know it came into existence in the year 1740, with Samuel Richardson's Pamela. There had been novels before this, but they tended to be either fairy tales or picaresque "true narrations." What Richa ...
Text of House Resolution 269 Honoring the Achievements of Antonio Meucci - June 11, 2002
The following resolution was passed on June 11, 2002 in the U.S. House of Representatives:HRES 269 IH 107th CONGRESS1st SessionIN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVESMr. FOSSELLA submitted the following resolution:RESOLUTIONExpressing the sense of the House ...
Becoming a Writer - June 10, 2002
A Note from the Wizard at www.WizardofAds.com
You have a great book hiding within you. So are you going to coax it out? "I'd love to write a book, but I don't know how." Sure you do. You learned how in elementary school, remember? Words become sentences. ...
Two Places at Once - June 3, 2002
A Note from the Wizard to Help You Better Understand Yourself and Those you Love
"Absent-minded professor" is a term often used to describe a person who isn't very observant. Do you have a friend who sometimes loses track of what they're doing? And even occasionally of where they are? Are ...
Magic Words - May 27, 2002
A Monday Morning Memo from the Drafty North Tower of the Wizard's Castle
f you take pride in your rational, logical demeanor and consider yourself to be above emotional distractions, I'm afraid I've got some bad news for you. Beneath that calm, outer shell you're just as out-of-control as the rest ...
Silent No Longer - May 20, 2002
Warning - Today's Memo is Highly Controversial and I Do Not Pretend to be Objective
I can be silent no longer. I am prejudiced concerning Jews. But my prejudice is not against them. I am prejudiced in their favor.Tulsa, Oklahoma - 1978: 20 year-old me is in need of a car. I dream of a Triumph Spitfire. Waking early one Saturday morn ...
Executive Summary on the Middle East - May 13, 2002
Attributed to comedian Dennis Miller, but actually written by comedian LARRY Miller of L.A.
A brief overview of the situation is always valuable, so as a service to all Americans who still don't get it, I now offer you the story of the Middle East in just a few paragraphs, which is all you really need. Don't thank me. I& ...
Do You Have a Book in You? - May 6, 2002
A Monday Morning Reflection while Looking out a New York Window
One by one, ten men and Holly Buchanan had risen to tell us their names and a little about themselves. Now it was time for the distinguished, older gentleman in the back row to stand and do the same. "My name is Keith Miller and after listen ...
Is Happiness a Reasonable Goal? - April 29, 2002
A Monday Memo - Borrowed from an Email Discussion between Wizard Academy Alumni
One of my great joys is to monitor the online discussions between Wizard Academy graduates. From astrophysics to advertising to albino monkeys, you never know what question will be posed by one to be pondered by all. Recently, Lisa Davis stepped side ...
Free. The Beagle. - April 22, 2002
A Misty Moment of Magic on a Marv Ellis Monday Morning.
Do you remember the birth of the beagle in June, 2001*?.In much the same way that Fraser began as Diane's boyfriend in a single episode of Cheers and then went on to become a regular and then to have a show of his own, the happy little be ...
The Exact Science of Creativity - April 15, 2002
A Monday Morning Thought from the Wizard at www.WizardofAds.com
It was during the Business Topology module of the Magical Worlds curriculum that John Quarto-vonTivadar raised his shy hand and quietly asked, "Have you ever studied TRIZ?" Seeing the blank look on my face, John knew instantly t ...
Are You Making the Old Mistakes? - April 8, 2002
Another Monday Morning Thought from the Wizard at wizardacademy.org
You need some new ideas because the old ones aren't working. The time has come to reinvent your product and your company, maybe even yourself. But the only framework within which you can visualize ...
Tom Grimes Letter - April 8, 2002
Letter to Texas Monthly
To: Mike Levy, Evan Smith, Paul Burka, Jane Dure and Gary Cartwright** Texas Monthly Box 1569 Austin, Texas 78767-1569 ...
CRM - the Next Big Thing - April 1, 2002
A Monday Morning Memo for those Retailers Who Want to Operate Ahead of the Curve
Branding has dominated the landscape of corporate America in recent years, but the best business minds in America predict that we'll soon be hearing that term with steadily decreasing frequency. ...
Two Kinds of Customers - March 25, 2002
A Monday Memo Explaining the Great Mystery of Retail - from wizardacademy.org
The student became the teacher last week when Wizard Academy graduate Bill Bergh taught me something that I had never previously realized, even though Dr. Nick Grant had explained it to me at least half a dozen times. It was one of those times when y ...
Is God in the Details? - March 18, 2002
A Monday Morning Update on the Wizard's Evolving Theory of Thought Particles
The left brain is your link to this physical world and the right brain is your link to the spiritual. It's all very simple, really. It's just a question of body and soul.Sight, sound, touch and muscular control are housed in the brain ...
How to Get Free Press - March 11, 2002
Good News from the Wizard at wizardacademy.org
Heads look down and hands begin to write every time I say it in a public seminar, so I always give people time to write it down. It's one of those things that's so obviously true that people are surprised they never thought of it on t ...
Lawyer Food, Beagle Food - March 11, 2002
How to Care for the Beagle in Your Brain, from wizardacademy.org
The lawyer in your left brain wants concrete facts and sequential logic. But the beagle in your right brain thrives on fuzzy ideas and chaotic patterns. The lawyer demands information - that which can be seen, ...
How to Survive a Family Business - March 4, 2002
A Monday Morning Memo from the Wizard's Study at www.wizardacdemy.com
If you run your business like a family, you're headed for disaster. The only thing that could possibly be worse would be to run your family like a business. ...
Help the Wizard Help You - February 25, 2002
A Monday Morning Invitation from wizardacademy.org.com
One of the self-imposed guidelines regarding these Monday Morning Memos is that I try very hard never to use the words "I," me," or "my" when writing to you about your life ...
How to Steal Your Life Back - February 18, 2002
(Or, Stealing Home Plate to Score the Winning Run in the Baseball Game of Life)
The catcher walked out to the pitcher's mound and everything came to a halt. Their brief conversation was punctuated only by the sweep of their eyes as they slowly scanned the crowd. The moment ...
Mental Jigsaw Puzzle - February 11, 2002
(Monday Morning Ramblings of a Distracted Wizard at wizardacademy.org )
We live in a society that is over-busy. (I'll bet you're feeling a bit "behind" even as you read this, aren't you?) I'm currently working on a MMMemo entitled & ...
The Wizard Talks About God - May 15, 2000
The Monday Morning Memo
Subject: Just a couple of questions for you--if you have time for one of your readersDate: Mon, May 15, 2000, 6:37 PMDear Mr. Williams:I am a 38-year old woman from Massachusetts. I read your first book and loved it. You mention God a lot throughout ...
Wizard Academy Library Tower - January 8, 2000
I'm Anxious for You to Tour It
The stone road leading to the wine cellar will begin at ground level and continue level into the sloping hillside, perfectly Pole-Star North – 300 feet – until you arrive at the door of the wine cellar, 12 feet underground.
Ceilings on each floo ...
Library Tower North Face - January 8, 2000
Click the image to see the tower's south face.
...
Mississippi Smoldering - August 25, 1998
Bundle up your Prejudice.
Keep safe and warm your Scorn.
Set an extra plate for Hatred's sake.
A robe for friend Forlorn.
Yes, Usher in Sweet Ignorance.
Nestle near your Children's Fear.
Keep alive the Pain ins ...
Positive Memory Recall - July 22, 1971
I write these words in the wee morning hours of a winter's day, January 10, 2007. Few people will ever read them as they'll be buried deep in the archives of the Monday Morning Memo.
12 years old, I sit in an inner tube, James Greenlee float ...
Focus and Intensity - November 7, 1958
1. The Recipe for Happiness
"If your eye is single,
focused on one thing
your whole body will be full of light.
creativity, enthusiasm, stamina
But if your eye is unclear,
torn between two choices
your whole body shall be ...
In the Library Tower... - January 8, 1937
My Plans for 2007-2008
I was looking through the hundreds of photos that comprise the Accidental Magic collection when I stumbled across this forgotten beauty.
Where are they?
Who are they?
How did they get on that pipe?
How will they get off it?
None ...
Near Jackson Hole, Wyoming - November 30, 1823
Danger! Danger! This is an AD!
This week I wrote and produced a very simple radio ad to air in Jackson Hole, Wyoming.
I did it for Ray Bard, my longtime friend and the publisher of my Wizard of Ads trilogy.
Ray and his son, Shawn, are the developers of Buffalo Run in Wyomi ...
Brilliant Short Writings - December 10, 1820
As is my custom, I'll give you random passages chosen quickly from the books that lie beside my bed.
If you appreciate the flavor of a random passage, you'll like the taste of the book.
We should all read more.
The Collected Stories ...
Will You Help With Some Research? - July 4, 1776
After you've done what this page asks, click the blackboard to see the BeagleSword.
You watched, or should have watched, two TV commercials at the beginning of today's rabbit hole. The first ad was about bowling and the second ad w ...