“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 Twain“I too have had my dreams: ay, known indeed the crowded visions of a fiery youth which haunt me still.” – Oscar WildeDo you have a plan that makes you feel half crazy and the other half scared? Are you attempting to do something that's far bigger than you are? Tell me about it in an email. Send it to [email protected]. I don't promise to help you. Heck, I don't even promise to respond. But I do promise to read your words and smile. Or maybe shake my head in amazement. Or perhaps even mumble a prayer for you.While speaking at the Sorbonne in Paris, April 23, 1910, audacious Teddy Roosevelt looked the French coldly in the eyes and delivered his famous admonition, “It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat.”And you wondered why the French tend not to like Americans.Tell me the audacious thing you're attempting to do. Send a tale that would make Teddy proud.Roy H. Williams

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 currently in the middle of a 6-year transition from an Idealistic “Me” society to a more Civic-minded “We” perspective. If you've experienced my 90-minute Time Tunnel presentation, you know how it answers deep, nagging questions while it brings bubbling to the surface a bunch of new ones. This book begins answering the new ones. (Hello to all the new readers who experienced the Time Tunnel in Las Vegas last week. This is the book I told you to pre-order.)This newest hardback from the Eisenbrothers contains much of the latest thought from Wizard Academy. In it, you'll find me quoted a couple of times, along with board member Dr. Richard (Nick) Grant and our resident screen-and-fiction-writing genius, David Freeman. Mostly though, the book is an explanation of why yesterday's successful marketing techniques aren't working anymore, with expert advice about how to get in step with today's finicky, cat-like public.SURPRISE! Packaged inside the cover you'll find an 80-minute video CD that was shot a couple of months ago in Wizard Academy's Tuscan Hall. View it and witness a brutal peer review as America's most forward-thinking marketers from several of the most powerful companies in America grill Jeff and Bryan about the strange new ideas in their book. Would you like to see a one minute and twenty second glimpse of this 80-minute video that comes inside every copy of Waiting for Your Cat to Bark?Buy the book at your local bookstore today. Or order it online.Is fiction more your taste? Did you ever read The Secret Life of Bees? If you liked that book, you'll like The Book Thief by Markus Zusak. The characters are well crafted and the unfolding is intriguingly bizarre, almost Tom Robbins-like. (I won't tell you the identity of the omniscient narrator, but trust me you'll be surprised.) Here's one of the little sidebar comments made by the narrator throughout the book:* * * SOME FACTS ABOUT RUDY STEINER * * *“He was eight months older than Liesel and had bony legs, sharp teeth, gangly blue eyes, and hair the color of lemon. One of six Steiner children, he was permanently hungry. On Himmel Street, he was considered a little crazy. This was on account of an event that was rarely spoken about but widely regarded as ‘The Jesse Owens Incident,' in which he painted himself charcoal black and ran the 100 meters at the local playing field one night.”As long as we're on the subject of literature: Jacob, our 22 year-old younger son, expressed his concern to me last week about the name of the new course I'm teaching at Wizard Academy, Da Vinci and The 40 Answers. “Dad,” he asked, “don't you worry that people will think you're jumping on the Da Vinci Code bandwagon?” I explained to Jake that part of my reasoning behind the course's name was to reclaim the misappropriated identity of Leonardo da Vinci.Yes, I read Dan Brown's book, The Da...

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 pronouncements and predictions.Alexis de Tocqueville, that 25 year-old Frenchman who authored Democracy in America, traveled for 9 months throughout the United States of 1831 with his friend, Gustave de Beaumont.The pair traveled west to Michigan to see unspoiled wilderness, then down to New Orleans to hear the heartbeat of the South, but the majority of their time was spent in Boston, New York and Philadelphia where they arranged meetings with some of the most influential thinkers of the early 19th century.Tocqueville interviewed presidents, lawyers, bankers and settlers and even met with Charles Carroll, the last surviving signer of the Declaration of Independence. Democracy in America, the book that resulted from his beagle's journey, set the stage for discussions about democracy that are still being carried on today.So what did Tocqueville say?Allow book-reviewer Margaret Magnus to paraphrase: “America will face a great civil war,' Tocqueville predicted, 'and although they've chosen a bunch of numskulls for president before, don't be fooled. In time of great need, they will elect a great man. They just don't want busybodies in power unless they need them. I know America has only a small percent of the GNP and population of France, but keep a close eye on this one. In 100 years, its population will be around 200,000,000. And the world will be split between two great powers, Russia which will gain its preeminence by the sword and America which will gain it by the plowshare. Now I know Mexico just translated America's Constitution word for word into Spanish, and aspires to establish a society just like theirs. And I know their current populations are comparable. Still America will gain preeminence, but Mexico will not. And here's why… And I know the number of Negroes and the number of natives is about the same, and they are both subordinate to the whites. Still the natives will disappear as a powerful identifiable social and economic force, but the African will not. There will be a well defined and influential African subculture in 100 years, but the same will not hold of the natives. And here's why…'”– from the Margaret Magnus amazon.com review of Democracy in AmericaThe entire text of Democracy in America by Alexis de Tocqueville is available online.Was Tocqueville posing as a mystic seer, as did Nostradamus before him and Rasputin after? Or did he simply gather information and recognize patterns, as did Leonardo da Vinci, Buckminster Fuller and Genrich Altschuller?Read what Tocqueville wrote and decide for yourself.Roy H. Williams

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 he was born: Lenny Albano.An unwanted child, Lenny grows up strangely in this remote, rural neighborhood without access to comic books or video games. Estranged parents. Odd relationships. A badly broken situation.But his imagination is intact. Is your imagination intact?Long walks in the hills surrounding Mount Albano cause Lenny to fall in love with animals. He loves them so much that he buys caged creatures just so he can set them free. How Lenny makes his money is unimportant. But how he spends it reveals his soul.How do you spend your money?People laugh when Lenny becomes a vegetarian. He doesn't care. People have laughed at him since the day he was born. Lenny hides from them by taking journeys in his mind. He goes exploring, deep inside his own head. Lenny is amazed by the things he finds.Lenny scribbles his thoughts in journals and draws little pictures in the margins. Although no publisher is willing to publish these random thoughts, Bill Gates recently paid 30 million dollars for just one of Lenny's journals.Lenny is very smart.But Lenny's deep curiosity causes him to be easily distracted. Although lots of people are willing to buy his paintings, rarely can he stay focused long enough to finish one.Lenny isn't completely alone in his quirky curiosity. When Lenny is 40, a man named Chris sails west to look for the east. Go figure.Long after Lenny dies, the world realizes how far ahead of his time he'd been. Sigmund Freud said Lenny “was like a man who awoke too early in the darkness, while the others were all still asleep.”But we no longer call him by the name of the mountain under whose shadow he was born. We choose instead to call him by the name of the village he was from. And for some strange reason we insist on calling Lenny of Vinci, “Leonardo.”I think Lenny would have laughed had he known.And I think he would have fit right in at Wizard Academy.What do you think?Roy H. Williams

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 someone be willing to pay for this?” Ask instead, “At what price could I sell a huge number of these?” Read the biographies of Henry Ford and Sam Walton and you'll learn that this was the one question asked by both men throughout their lives. The correct answer to that question lifted Henry and Sam out of the shadows of obscurity to stand among America's wealthiest citizens.Please don't listen to well-meaning friends who try to tell you that “Anyone who would pay ten dollars for this would just as quickly pay fifteen.” The Model T was invented when Henry Ford set out to “design a car that could be manufactured and sold at a profit for $850.00” Every other car in the world sold for at least $2,500 at the time. Nearly 2,000 automobile manufacturers had been launched and failed during the 22 years prior to Henry's launch of the Model T in 1908. (It was called the Model T because Models A through S failed to meet Henry's pricing criteria. The Model A that replaced the Model T was the beginning of Henry's second trip through the alphabet.) The assembly line was invented only as a tool to help Henry achieve his price.Read Made in America, the biography of Sam Walton written while he lay on his deathbed, and you'll quickly see that Sam was just another Henry Ford. Can anyone say Michael Dell?Value – People don't trade money for things when they value their money more highly than they value the things. No trade will be made unless they want the thing more than they want their money. This is why things-with-stories sell faster than things-without-stories. How much faster depends on the story.Notice that I didn't say things-with-stories necessarily sell for more money, I said they sell faster. Stories, like refurbishments and repairs, can increase the salability of an item without increasing its actual value. Ask anyone who has ever sold a home or a car. All that repainting, repair and clean-up didn't raise the price as much as it made the home or car more salable. Likewise, stories increase salability more often than they increase the value or the price.The value of an item – in the mind of a consumer – is simply the difference between the anticipated price and the price on the tag. When the anticipated price is higher than the price tag, it's a “good value.” When the anticipated price is lower than the price tag, it's a bad value. Good stories raise the anticipated price. Finding the untold story is the goal of a process we call the Uncovery.Salability – The salability of an item can often be improved while the value itself remains unchanged. A good story often increases the salability of an item without increasing its actual value. NOTE: The fact that an item is selling briskly doesn't always mean that you can increase its price. And the fact that an item isn't selling well can't always be cured by lowering its price.Sometimes the secret to increasing the sales volume of an item is to tell a better story about it. Sometimes the secret is simply to lower the price. Do both and you can take over the world.Just ask Henry, Sam and Michael.Roy H. Williams

“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.”Too much to do, too little time. Tossed and turned by a too-much world, we're as tired as a termite in a yo-yo. And all along, we were just trying to find our way home.“Why am I here? What is my purpose? Who are my people? Where is my tribe?”Branding is built on our need to belong. The majority of our decisions-to-purchase revolve around self-definition. We buy what we buy to remind ourselves – and tell the world around us – who we are.And most of your customers are doing exactly the same thing. What are you doing to brighten the mirror of who your customers believe themselves to be? Do you even know who they believe themselves to be?Successful Branding is to:1. Know your customer.2. Reinforce their self-image.3. Make them feel they've found “home.”Overlay Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs onto the preference profiles of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator and you'll soon recognize the four faces of your customers. And each of them is looking for something different from you:Leader/Early Adopter, wants to be first-on-the-block:Show them things that “just came in.” Hang a sign on every New Arrival.– approximately 10 percent of our populationOutsider/Goes his-her own way, proudly stands alone (with all the other loners):Follow his-her lead. These people will strongly resist any attempt to direct them.– approximately 9 percent of our population.Analyst/Skeptic, looks for details, facts, and statistics:Have credible data available for them. Answer their questions precisely as asked.– approximately 24 percent of our populationFollower/Member of the Club, wants to be part of the “In” crowd:Show these people “what's hot.” NOTE: Very few people are willing to define themselves as followers, even though they admit they're attracted to best-selling items.– approximately 57 percent of our populationLeader, Outsider, Analyst, Follower; every business attracts these four faces. Your business category likely has other, more specific customer personas that are unique to it. And each of these comes to you for different reasons and with different expectations.Do you keep your customer personas clearly in mind when creating your ads?Are you prepared to sell each of these customers “their way?” Have you trained your staff how to recognize each type of customer and how to serve each of them differently?If your business is average, your people are closing the sale slightly more often than 2 times out of every 10 customer encounters. If you could help them get just 1 more smiling “yes” from the remaining crowd of nearly 8 unsold customers, your sales volume would increase by 50 percent… with no increase in advertising and no additional store traffic.Sound like something you might want to check into?Roy H. Williams

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 things are and decides to do something about it. “Hanani, one of my brothers, came from Judah with some other men, and I questioned them about the Jewish remnant that survived the exile, and also about Jerusalem. They said to me, 'Those who survived the exile and are back in the province are in great trouble and disgrace. The wall of Jerusalem is broken down, and its gates have been burned with fire.' When I heard these things, I sat down and wept.”Have you ever learned something that made you want to sit down and weep? Emptiness. Violence. Illiteracy. Loneliness. Disease. Poverty. The world is full of sadness.But Nehemiah wasn't like most people. He didn't think it was enough just to be sad. He decided to do something, even though he was very afraid.“Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgment that something else is more important than fear.” – Ambrose Redmoon, quoted by my friend Susan Ryan just before she left for AfghanistanSpeaking to King Artaxerxes of Persia, Nehemiah said, “If it pleases the king and if your servant has found favor in his sight, let him send me to the city in Judah where my fathers are buried so that I can rebuild it.” The king gave his permission. And thus Nehemiah began the long labor for which he would be forever remembered.“Great works are performed not by strength, but by perseverance.” – Samuel Johnson“When you grow up, you have to give yourself away. Sometimes you give your life all in a moment, but mostly you have to give yourself away laboring one minute at a time.” – Gaborn Val OrdenDo you have a plan for making the world better, or at least your little corner of it? Tell us about it in your application to be selected for Wizard Academy's World Changers curriculum July 10-12, 2006. Perhaps you'll be one of the two-dozen carefully chosen students to receive a full scholarship.No paid seats will be available for this course.Month after month, Wizard Academy equips people who want to make a difference. This is why journalists and scientists and artists and educators and business owners and advertising professionals and ministers are attracted to our little school. But for 3 hot days each July, we train 24 students who want to make a difference, but who don't have the funds for tuition.Six of the World Changers for 2006 will be chosen by Dr. Glenn Cherry. Six will be chosen by Wizard Academy board member Corrine Taylor. Six will be chosen by board member Dr. Richard D. Grant. The final six will be chosen by Pennie Williams, President and co-founder of the Academy.If you believe you should be in this class, please read the list of qualifying criteria and be sure your application for scholarship reaches us prior to midnight, June 10, 2006. Successful applicants will be notified on or before June 17, 2006.Talk is cheap. The world doesn't want to hear what you believe.They're watching to see what you do.Roy H. Williams

A Very Interesting AdThe 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 three questions that haunt every business that has ever achieved success:How do we keep our latest innovation from becoming our last?How do we keep our organization as agile as a startup?How do we keep a fear of risk from blinding us to opportunity?The selection of these questions was pure genius. I applaud the ad writer. Even more brilliant was the fact that none of them was answered. For that, you'd have to call IBM Consulting.To pass the time, I decided to draft my own answers to each of these haunting questions:How do we keep our latest innovation from becoming our last?Trust your intuition. Remember how to play. Do at least one crazy thing each day.SPECIFICALLY: When your mind begins to wander and you find yourself thinking a strange and unproductive thought, ask, “What would it cost me to chase this rabbit right now?” If you can afford the time, unleash the fun-loving beagle in your brain to chase that zigzagging rabbit of distraction. But don't be surprised if these furry little friends lead you to a brilliant innovation. The rabbit of distraction is often a topological recognition cue and the beagle is always pattern recognition, a function of your brain's intuitive and wordless right hemisphere. Having recognized a possible solution to a puzzle you've been unconsciously trying to solve, the freewheeling beagle in your right brain whispers to the logical lawyer of the left, “Woo-hoo! Did you see that? Follow me!” It is the rabbit of inexplicable distraction, Alice, that will guide you into Wonderland.How do we keep our organization as agile as a startup?Carve into the top of your desk where you can see it every day, “The truth shall make you free, but first it shall make you angry.”SPECIFICALLY: Allow people who haven't drunk your Kool-Aid and have no reverence for your success to study your core strengths in search of the weaknesses that could be exploited by a challenger. When a competitive strategy is discovered that could actually work, do it to yourself before someone else does. Become your own competitor. And be merciless.Recognize that all answers are temporary. Allow no cow to become sacred. Yesterday's brilliant insight is tomorrow's traditional method.Specifically: Hang a 12-foot banner on the wall in the hallway, “I can't understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I'm frightened of the old ones.” Gather your staff every morning and have them say these words out loud in unison like the Pledge of Allegiance. I'm not just being colorful here. I'm being completely serious. The inertia of corporate, cultural memory cannot be overcome without employing a physical action and repeating it as a group for at least 13 consecutive days. This is absolutely essential if you plan to overcome “the way it's always been.” Changing corporate policy, having a meeting, and sending out a memo just won't get it done.How do we keep a fear of risk from blinding us to opportunity?Remember that proof-of-concept never requires you to bet the farm. Ideas that seem prohibitively dangerous can always be affordably tested. Create a culture of experimentation whose mantra is, “There are no ideas too crazy to test.”SPECIFICALLY: Budget for failure. Set aside hard dollars for testing new ideas with “an increase in knowledge” being the only expected outcome. Risk is now eliminated. Fear is gone. You will have created the perfect environment for successful Research...

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 your own politeness. You couldn't think of a way to get rid of him without being offensive. So you gave him your time. And often, your money.The new pitchman traps you at the cash register, saying effectively, “You're not leaving here with that merchandise until you listen to my pitch and answer a few questions.” I'm not talking about suggestive selling. This is much more annoying than that.The first time I was cashier conned was at the Apple Computer Store in the mall. My laptop needed repair so I decided to buy a new one, upload my data into it, repair the old one and give it to Barry. I had to have the new laptop immediately so I went to the Apple Store. I love Apple. If I was ever going to get a tattoo, it would probably be of that multicolored Apple logo. Is that nuts? Okay then, guilty.I stood at the cash register, credit card in my hand, as the cashier asked, “Would you like a copy of Microsoft Office for an extra fifty bucks?”“Fifty bucks? Sure.” So he stuck the software in the bag with my new computer, ran my credit card and had me sign the dealie. Then he slipped my receipt into the bag with a curious looking folder. On impulse, I pulled the folder out. It was a long and complicated application for a $150 rebate. The little rat bastard had charged me $200 for the software and silently slipped me a rebate application.“Am I supposed to fill this out?”Eye roll. “Yes, sir.”“Did you say to me, and I quote, “Would you like a copy of Microsoft Office for an extra fifty bucks?”Self-righteous now. “Yes, sir.” The little RB was acting like I was out of line for being annoyed by this.“Sorry, but I don't fill out rebate forms. Here's your software. Give me back my money.” I'll never visit another Apple Store. Future purchases will be strictly online where I can read all the fine print before I say yes. I'm glad I didn't get the tattoo.A couple of weeks later my Dodge pickup needed a safety inspection. The outdated little sticker in its windshield screamed to the police that I was driving an illegal vehicle. I pulled in at Jiffy Lube.“Do you do safety inspections?”“Yes, sir. We sure do.”I had them change the oil, replace the air filter and install new windshield wipers. As they handed me my keys, I said, “You forgot the new safety sticker.”“Oh, we don't do official safety inspections, sir. We do Jiffy Lube inspections.”This time the con was so outrageous that I got tickled. “Oh, so you looked everything over and it seems oky-doky to you?”“Yes, sir.”“Great. Now I can sleep at night.” I beamed a big smile and left. Small people complain. I just never go back. Is there a chance the little jiffy weasel honestly misunderstood my safety inspection inquiry? Zero. His response was trained. Every day, thousands of Texans have to get their vehicles safety inspected. Jiffy Lube doesn't want the hassle but they obviously want the traffic. They're hoping we'll chalk it up as honest miscommunication. And most of us probably will. Once. The jiffy weasel knew that if he told me the truth, that they don't do safety inspections, I would have taken my truck somewhere else. Jiffy Lube used to be another of my favorite companies. Now I feel violated by them, a little bit raped. Sorry for the language, but that's how I feel.Somehow, I'm betting I'm not the only one.The most recent cashier con happened at Best Buy. “Your purchase today qualifies you for 8 free issues of Sports Illustrated or Entertainment Weekly. Which do you prefer?” I firmly declined both.Do you think maybe I was just being...

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 afraid it will never begin.” In other words, be afraid you will never catch fire.Lethargy. Apathy. Malaise. Aimlessness. Depression: Five different words for the absence of a flame.What is it that burns in your soul and shines through your eyes?Did you know that humans would rather be angry than bored? Anger is an ugly flame, but it feels better than no flame at all. This is why people who have no creative vision spend so much time being angry. Anger gives them purpose.Try not to walk in their shadow.Jorge Luis Borges, consumed by the tiger of time, is gone. But when he walked among us he looked directly into the lens of life's camera and said, “Time is the substance of which I am made. Time is a river that sweeps me along, but I am the river; it is a tiger that tears me apart, but I am the tiger; it is a fire that consumes me, but I am the fire. The world, unfortunately, is real; I, unfortunately, am Borges.”Time is the fire, the animator of us all. You step into it at birth. You step out of it at death and grow cold, a column of wax once more. Your candle is spent.What did it light?You've heard me say it many times… I repeat it again today, not because I can think of nothing else to say, but because it's vitally important to your happiness:“Lives, like money, are spent. What are you buying with yours?”Roy H. Williams

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 about it. Then he was whisked away to Kyoto, Japan, to create the next generation of video games for some of the world's most powerful game companies. I wish I could tell you more, but I can't. Akintunde is sworn to deep secrecy.Akintunde is the essential Outsider.Tiny protons, neutrons, and electrons are generally considered to be the building blocks of matter. In a similar fashion, I believe Thought Particles – the smallest units of thought – to be the building blocks of communication. Learn how to skillfully stack them and you will communicate with greater power.Last week I wrote about Pandora.com because music is the oldest example of Thought Particle technology. “If a man were permitted to make all the ballads, he need not care who should make the laws. Ancient legislators knew they could not reform the manners of a city without the help of a songwriter and a poet.” – Andrew Fletcher, to Scottish Parliament in 1704A radio is essentially a mood selection device. How do you want to feel? Just press the appropriate button.Likewise, visual artists arrange lines and colors, using shape and ratio, position and juxtaposition to compose nonverbal “statements.” They provide us with light-wave, rather than sound wave, examples of carefully stacked Thought Particles. My friend David Freeman explains exactly how to craft visual statements in his outsider book, Creating Emotion in Games: The Craft and Art of Emotioneering. When that book was released, David, like Akintunde, was immediately flown to Japan.If Akintunde and David ever get together, they'll probably take over the world. I suspect the Japanese game companies know this, too.Another team of Wizard Academy graduates is currently investigating the science of using of shape and color to make nonverbal statements in corporate logos. Think of it as visual Pandora.Additionally, the Academy is studying the statements made to customers through a business owner's choices in landscaping, signage, flooring, lighting, etc. A Beta version of the resulting Customer Experience Index will be released in Summer '06.We're in the throes of tumultuous change in the world of marketing. We're being tossed topsy-turvy, tumbled by technology. New techniques are being introduced that sharply reduce the need for creative talent, intuition, and gut feel.Have you ever seen one of those little Bluetooth earpieces that hooks around your ear and becomes a wireless headset for your cell phone? Now imagine marrying one of those to a next generation lie detector and using it to measure the raw, unfiltered responses of people to various ads.Bye-bye, Focus Groups.Using this new application of Thought Particle technology, you'll no longer need to ask people how they feel about a particular ad. Just hook the earpiece around their ear, tape the lead wire to their temple, play the ad for them and then you can tell them how they feel about it. Or let the person flip through a series of proposed magazine ads. The earpiece will clearly tell you which ad would be most effective. I imagine there'll soon be auditoriums full of people with earpieces listening to spec radio ads, watching spec TV spots and reading spec magazine ads.How do I know about this?Sigh.Shortly after Thought Particles: Binary Code of the Mind was released, a student arrived from the Pentagon to

Thought Particle Technology has ArrivedI 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 whose ideas about music are much bigger and more divergent than the mere idea of “format” or “genre.” Tell Pandora what songs you like and she'll soon figure out what all those songs have in common that you never realized. Pandora also learns from the songs you tell her you don't like.I fed Pandora everything from James Taylor and Jimmy Buffett to the blistering rage of Bone Thugs and System of a Down. I even admitted a fondness for certain songs of Janice Ian and Frank Sinatra and Nat King Cole.Pandora says I tend to like songs with a subtle blues or country influence, Likewise, I'm a sucker for paired harmony, a syncopated rhythm, interesting part writing and strong melodies. And that's just a few of the characteristics my songs tend to have in common. But you've got to tell her what you like.The benefit of all this back-and-forth interaction with Pandora is that she will soon begin playing songs you never knew existed, songs that make you say, “Wow! This is the coolest music I've ever heard in my life!” Even as I write this, I've got Pandora playing through my laptop. A moment ago I heard, I Concentrate on You, by Steve Tyrell. Never heard it before in my life. Loved it. Right now Pandora is playing It's Alright by Big Head Todd & The Monsters. Who the heck is Big Head Todd?Pretty soon Pandora will change the tempo and take me in another of my favorite directions. Wow. What a coincidence. Just as I typed “another of my favorite directions,” the mellow mumblings of Big Head Todd segued into the bee-sting guitars of Ten Years After playing another song I've never heard in my life, When It All Falls Down.Click the image that appears on your monitor while a song is playing and Pandora will let you give it a Thumbs Up or Thumbs Down. She'll link you to iTunes to buy the mp3 or to Amazon to buy the CD. She'll even explain why she chose that song for you.Yes, Pandora has leaped light-years beyond Amazon's suggestion of “People who bought this CD also bought…..”No, I'm not making a penny off any of this. I'm suggesting that you meet Pandora for your benefit, not hers.You need her a lot more than she needs you.Next week I'll tell you about a few other soon-to-be-released technologies built on Thought Particles, the simple but practical application of a bizarre pattern-recognition system that is easily encoded into software to create powerfully convincing artificial intelligences.The day of Thought Particles has arrived.Roy H. Williams

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 image, little miniatures of himself. That means we're creators by nature, too. Creativity is our heritage. It's in our DNA. When we create, we're being Godlike. We're doing what we're supposed to do. Musicians, inventors, landscapers, cooks, beauticians and actors and writers of books are just following the call of a creative plan and fulfilling the destiny of a thing called Man.What do you create?In the fifty-fifth chapter of his book, Isaiah reports God as saying, “As the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return to it without watering the earth and making it bud and flourish, so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater, so is my word that goes out from my mouth: It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.”Now back to the nature of God for a moment. When he said, “Let there be light,” we can be sure he didn't use vocal cords to create vibrations that traveled through air. The fourth part of the letter to the Hebrews tells us “the word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.”Did you catch that first part, about how God's statements are “living,” alive?John's gospel skips Bethlehem and the begats. John takes us back to the big bang, “Let there be… Light!” Here's how he puts it: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him [the Word,] and without Him nothing was made that was made… and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.”Writers, like God, speak worlds into existence. Likewise, every artist takes visitors to a world that isn't there. Photographers take us to long-ago moments by freezing a frame in this filmstrip we call the space-time continuum. Painters take us to places we've never been. Actors introduce us to people that don't exist. Landscapers create moods and feelings we didn't have before, as do musicians and interior decorators. Video games create emotion in us by allowing us to star in our very own movie. They are an art form like every other.What is the form of your art? Into what moist clay are you leaving your fingerprints? Are you molding the minds of young men and women? Are you, like Alberto Mendieta, causing buildings to rise from piles of materials? Are you able to swing his hammer?Please don't insult God by telling me you aren't creative. You are creative. And every creative effort brings a rich reward.Read the first chapter of Genesis. And then create something. Do it so the thing will exist. Fling it into existence from the fingertips of your mind.And then watch what happens.Roy H. Williams

Having Arrived at the Endand Forgotten to Live2005 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 would be lost. The business, the school, our home, the cars, everything. For days at a time my eyes wouldn't focus. I walked around wanting to fall to my knees and throw up.But a strange scrap of paper kept everything in perspective. I found it on my father's kitchen table after the police told me he had been found dead in his recliner. In his unique handwriting, it read, “All the little things in life add up to your life. If you don't get it right then nothing else matters. It gets lonely in the promised land by yourself.”That was it. Nothing else.Things are fine now. God rescued Pennie and me from the belly of the fish. But that scrap of paper floated in front of blurry eyes again last week.During the construction of Chapel Dulcinea I took several photos of her small crew at work. Daniel Denny had carefully selected these young men to help him accomplish the impossible. The five of them built Tuscan Hall and The House of Ten Doors and Chapel Dulcinea and the first half of Engelbrecht House in less time than is humanly possible. They did what can't be done.I was far too busy with emergencies and tragedies and the needs of my clients to take photos in 2005 but “All the little things in life add up to your life,” so I took the photos anyway, thinking, “Someday these will be important.”A few weeks ago Ed Valdez translated for us what 22 year-old Alberto was saying. “I have been sending all my money home to buy young cattle during my time in America and now my parents tell me that I must return and take care of my cows.” He smiled. “My herd now numbers more than 40.” Alberto had quietly refused to learn English during his time in America, saying, “I will remain here only long enough to buy young cattle, then I will return to Mexico and marry a beautiful girl and be a rancher.” Every day Alberto's softness and simplicity reminded me of Mr. Rogers from Mr. Rogers Neighborhood.David Mendieta called a few days ago to tell us that his little brother Alberto had been stabbed and killed by a nut. I fell to my knees and threw up.But then I remembered the photographs.They cannot patch the hole punched into the heart of Alberto's mother by the knife that killed her son. But I sent her seven photos that show her boy working happily during his last days on earth, building a thing that will bring joy to the lives of thousands of young couples for decades and centuries to come.“All the little things in life add up to your life. If you don't get it right then nothing else matters.”Alberto Mendieta got all the little things right. Nothing else matters.Roy H. Williams

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 always sold-out curriculum, How to Write Powerfully and Clearly. Also joining us will be David Freeman, teacher of Beyond Structure, L.A.'s most popular screenwriting and fiction workshop. (It would be worth ten times the price of this conference just to hear David Freeman talk about character diamonds. We're going to hear him for 2 full hours, PLUS he's staying for the party. Woo-hoo!) I was also able to convince Ray Bard – America's most successful publisher of business books – to give you some fast track insights into publishing your own first book. This is going to be one incredible day.Lunch and Dinner will be provided.I can't promise you any instructors beyond those four and me, but I do plan to ask my multimillion bestselling book-friends Keith Miller and Russell Friedman if they might grant us a few words of instruction and encouragement as well.Considering that he recently bought the house directly across the street from the entrance to the Academy, I'm fairly certain I can get Wizard Acadgrad Michael Drew to give us some tips about what it takes to make a serious run at the bestseller lists. Michael is the young miracle worker who helped Jeffrey and Bryan Eisenberg put their first Wizard Academy Press hardback, Call to Action,on the bestseller lists of the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and USA Today. Michael worked with me on my bestselling Wizard of Ads trilogy back when he was barely 20 years old.PARTY: The principal reason for this writer's seminar and party is to celebrate the release of a fat new book from Wizard Academy Press called People Stories: Inside the Outside. Each of the contributing authors is being granted a full-tuition scholarship to the event, but the rest of us are going to have to pay $350 each. (AcadGrads get 50 percent off, as always.)Each attendee will be given a first-edition copy of People Stories: Inside the Outside, allowing them to get the signatures of each of the contributing authors on their respective pages. Pretty cool, huh? The authors will be easy to spot because they'll be wearing special name badges with their page numbers prominently emblazed.The seminar is going to be unforgettable. The party is going to be front-page news. Seating is limited to only 200 (and 143 of those precious seats are reserved for the contributing authors.) I'd register quickly if I were you. There will be no free passes given other than the ones extended to the contributing authors.CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS: Want to get in on the next big Wizard Academy Press project? Poor Writer's Almanac will be a priceless compendium of methods, tips and secrets from hundreds of authors whose lives spanned hundreds of years. Our plan is to publish it in hardback since we believe it will become a highly regarded reference book in literary circles around the world. (I know that last part sounded like bigtalk, but I sincerely believe it's what's going to happen.) We've collected some truly amazing stuff for the guts of this book and we're...

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 with it. We suck it in and out of our lungs like a fish pulls water through its gills.And we almost never think about it.Akintunde, my friend from botanical green Nigeria, tells me his first impression of America was that everything here smelled burnt. He spent his first few days turning this way and that, ever looking for the fire. Finally he realized it was only the hydrocarbons of a hundred million cars.Things don't smell burnt to Akintunde any more. He's become acclimated.Things familiar often grow invisible. And that's bad news for business owners.There are identifiable elements in successful ads. Don't let these elements become invisible:1. SALIENCE. To persuade, we must speak to the customer about something the customer cares about. Our message must have relevance. Cognitive neuroscientists call this salience. Most ads have too little salience to be remembered just 5 minutes later. How many of the ads from this morning's paper do you recall? Name the ads that appeared in the last TV show you watched. The last radio station you heard? What were the last 3 banner ads that appeared on your computer monitor?     a. Targeting: One way of increasing salience is to find people who are already interested, people who are currently, consciously in the market for what you're trying to sell: BOOM. Yellow pages. Search Engine optimization. Direct mail. Reaching people who are currently, consciously in the market is the fundamental idea behind Targeting. But it's dangerous to wait until your customer is known to be in the market. You'll likely be just another face in an anxious crowd. One among many. Good luck.     b. Copy: Focused copy is the best way to increase salience. Long copy is better only when it has to be that long because you have so many good things to say. Abundant words wrapped around a small idea won't work. A thick layer of words obscures the salience of a message. The cognoscenti call these Black Words.2. REPETITION is the only cure for insufficient salience. How much repetition will be required to drive your message into memory is determined primarily by the salience of the message.     a. Sleep is the enemy of advertising. It erases the noise of yesterday, especially the sights and sounds of selling. Therefore, when you desire a person to take quick action, the challenge is to reach them with maximum repetition, allowing minimal sleep between hits. This calls for vertical, rather than horizontal, ad scheduling.     b. Branding is essentially involuntary, automatic recall, a product of salience x repetition. A shortage on one side of the “x” can be supplemented by a surplus on the other side. Low salience requires high repetition. High salience requires low repetition. When using mass media, an opportunity exists to implant your brand as an associative memory in the minds of persons not currently in the market, so that your name becomes the first remembered – and the one the customer feels best about – when they finally need what you sell. Will your message have sufficient salience and repetition? Branding requires horizontal scheduling, repetition over time.Salience is determined by the Central Executive of Working Memory, located in the dorsolateral prefrontal association area of the brain. Working Memory is...

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 to swing the hammer and ring the bell during this year's Grammy Awards. A frail 17 million watched these legends read their cue cards while a muscular 28.3 million cheered hopeful, nameless kids singing their hearts out on American Idol.It was just one more indication of how we're moving away from the vertical hero-worship of Idealism to establish the horizontal links that mark an emerging Civic generation.Grandpa Jagger during halftime at the Superbowl, surrounded by people doing their best to act like cheering fans… I'm sorry, but that was just sad.I'm not trying to be catty, I'm trying to make a point: Plastic posing bores us. We have no desire to hear another Miss America contestant talk about her dream of world peace. Just once, wouldn't you like to hear the interviewer say, “And how is walking around in high heels and a swimsuit going to help bring about world peace?”Unfiltered authenticity is the new cool. And volunteerism is on the rise.We don't listen to big talkers anymore. Our collective silence toward them is our way of saying, “Talk is cheap. Now get off your idealistic ass and do something.”Tom Hanks is the new John Wayne. Remember Hanks' portrayal of the dutiful but reluctant English-teacher-turned-soldier in Saving Private Ryan? He was just a regular guy, doing the best he could, trying to make the best of a bad situation. Kind of like you and me.Struggling, flawed, tormented Jason Bourne is the new James Bond.Lost in Translation is the new Love Story.I'm not trying to depress you. I'm just trying to open your eyes to the realities of the new marketplace.Hype is dead.In 2004 – the first year following the shift away from Idealism – the Grammys scored a respectable 26.3 million viewers. The next year they fell to just 18.8 million. So this year's 17 million should have come as no surprise.Anyone taking bets on next year's audience?If you're a business owner needing advice about marketing in the new millennia, here's all you really need to know:Say it straight. Say it real. You'll do fine.Roy H. Williams

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 reading. The DELETE button is sitting there, twitching, anxious for you to bang it. There's nothing in today's note that would do a busy person like you any good.Unless, of course, you're in a major, world-class bigtime really extreme hurry. Then you should by all means keep reading.Would you like to have a secret retreat from the buzzing noise of daily life in the 21st century? Are you prepared to take a journey that will move your mind to another place, another time? Today I'm going to tell you about four non-fiction books and not one of them has a plot.But don't let that fool you.Sea Room, by Adam Nicolson.True to my custom, I opened this book to a random page (141) and began to read: ” …Something of the sense of holiness on islands comes, I think, from this strange, elastic geography. Islands are made larger, paradoxically, by the scale of the sea that surrounds them. The element which might reduce them, which might be thought to besiege them, has the opposite effect. The sea elevates these few acres into something they would never be if hidden in the mass of the mainland. The sea makes islands significant.” Impressed, I turned to chapter one where I was greeted, “For the last twenty years I have owned some islands. They are called the Shiants: one definite, softened syllable, 'the Shant Isles', like a sea shanty but with the 'y' trimmed away. The rest of the world thinks there is nothing much to them. Even on a map of the Hebrides the tip of your little finger would blot them out…” I bought hard-to-find copies for several of my friends.The Island at the Center of the World, by Russell Shorto.My partner Jeffrey Eisenberg shares my taste in books, so when I told him this book was “the epic story of Dutch Manhattan and the forgotten colony that shaped America,” he wasn't worried. Read it anyway. Later Jeff called me to say, “I think it may be one of the most interesting books I've ever read. Definitely the best-written history book. Almost reads like a novel.” But then again Jeff is strange. Might there be a chance that you, too, are Jeff's and my brand of crazy?Travels with Charley, by John Steinbeck.In 1961, a year prior to winning the Nobel Prize for Literature, John Steinbeck bought a camper and set out with his dog, Charley, to see America through the windshield of a pickup truck. This book is the story of that 3-month journey. Most people associate Steinbeck with Cannery Row, Of Mice and Men, The Grapes of Wrath, or East of Eden. Worthy books, to be sure. But this, his odd collection of experiences and observations is, I think, my favorite Steinbeck of them all. Travels with Charley is a celebration of the Ordinary, the disjointed thoughts and notes of a highly accomplished man looking quietly at the world around him. It is perhaps the most underlined, dog-eared, footnoted book I own.In tribute to Steinbeck's Travels with Charley, we're going to publish – in a 380-page book – all the essays we received in response to the challenge I issued 5 weeks ago. This book will have an ISBN number and a barcode and will be registered with the Library of Congress – the works. It will be called People Stories: Inside the Outside, and a free copy of it will be the special “gift of initiation” I promised to send everyone who dared to join our bleary-eyed fraternity. When the book arrives from the printer, (hopefully by late April,) it will be released with considerable...

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't ignore you.”“Your ads don't sound professional. They're not polished and smooth.”TRANSLATION: “It makes me mad that your ads stand out.”“I'm offended by your ads and I'll never do business with you.”TRANSLATION: “Complaining is what I do to make me feel important.”Over the past two decades, my fastest-growing clients have always been the ones willing to run my ads exactly as I've written them. Clients who 'tweak' my ads to make them softer typically grow at a softer pace.If people complain about an ad, does that mean it isn't working?If people love an ad and compliment you on it, does that mean it's generating traffic and profits? “Yo Quiero Taco Bell.”Pepsico spent a couple hundred million dollars promoting that dog's endorsement and it didn't increase taco sales a dime. Seriously. But we all loved that little chihuahua, didn't we? If Pepsico's goal was to entertain America; mission accomplished. But if part of their plan was to increase the sale of tacos, well, that part didn't work out.You've got to decide once and for all how you're going to measure success. It doesn't matter what you consider to be success. It matters only that you have an objective way of measuring it, (and in the process, the effectiveness of your advertising.)Do you want people to say they love your ads? No problem, I can make that happen. Do you want to measure units sold and dollars collected? I can make the mercury rise on that thermometer, too. Just not on both.A professional ad writer is a person who has spent millions of dollars of other people's money to learn what doesn't work. Hang on to your hat: the worst ideas always make the most sense. Breakthrough ideas are always counter-intuitive.“If the big ad agencies are doing all the wrong things, is it because they're stupid?” I was asked that question last week by Karen Jonson, a magazine writer. My impulse was to answer fliply, “Yes,” but I choked it down, slowed my internal RPM, and listened to my heart. “No,” I told her, “the problem big agencies face is that they're never able to sit across the table from someone with unconditional authority to say 'absolutely yes.' When a creative person knows they must gain the approval of a group, he or she will instinctively play it safe and give the group what they want, rather than what they need.”Most ads aren't written to move anyone. They're written not to offend.The next time you're watching a really good TV show or listening to a funny comedian, ask yourself, “How much would this show be changed if a group of people were allowed to strip away everything in it that might offend?”No committee will ever approve a great ad, they'll castrate it. But in their minds they're merely “tweaking it, softening it, taking off the offensive edge.” Subject a talented ad writer to a lot of second-guessing and he or she will reward you with ads that all your friends and family are guaranteed to like.Congratulations. Now you've got ads that sound exactly like everyone else's.Roy H. Williams

The American DreamAmerica 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 have an absolute dictator.In America's system of free enterprise, the person whose money is at risk is the person who gets to decide. Wrong or right, foolish or wise, whoever has the gold makes the rules. And that's the way it should be.So while America's social system is a democracy, individualized financial dictatorship is the foundation of our economy.Apply democratic principles to a business economy and what do you get? Socialism, if you do it softly. Do it for real and you've got Communism, the biggest economic disaster of the 20th century.Strange, isn't it? A democracy will have an economic system based on Darwinian survival-of-the-fittest, “It's a dog eat dog world and I'm about to wolf your poodle, pal.” But a society ruled by a dictator will usually have an economic system of financial democracy, “Everyone will work for the good of all and everyone will share alike.”Strange, isn't it? Social democracies have financial dictators and social dictators have financial democracies.The American Dream requires that businesses be controlled by two financial dictators. One of these dictators is the business owner. The other is the customer.Employees: If you don't like the rules of your dictator, you can go to work for someone else. Heck, you can even go to work for yourself. But if you're an unwise financial dictator, the bank and the IRS will come and haul away your stuff. Welcome to America.Customers: If you don't prefer the person you bought from yesterday, buy from someone else tomorrow. God Bless America: Land of the Free and Home of the Brave.I share these untidy and discomforting thoughts with you only as a warning: Don't introduce democratic principles into your business. I've seen it done too many times to count, and always by the kindest and best of my clients. And it has always ended badly.A strong business requires a strong dictator.Hey, don't get mad. I don't have a social or political agenda here, I'm just sharing an observation that's been tumbling through my head.“The American Dream” isn't the dream of a great society. It's the dream of personal wealth.I'm not saying that's the way it should be.Roy H. Williams

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 result of all this misinformation is a growing numbness to ad-speak. We're becoming deaf and blind to it. With effortless ease we shut it out of our minds.Why are advertisers happy when their ads sound like ads?Once-effective phrases become clichés when overused. Remember the 70s? Guys with long, pointed collars and blow-dried hair used the standard pick-up line, “Do you come here often?” They did it because it worked. They quit only when the ladies began laughing at them.But advertising still wears that ridiculous collar and blow-dried hair because its rejection was never face-to-face. We don't laugh at ads. We quietly ignore them.When demand is high and supply is low, your ads need only tell the world, “We've got it!” But how often do you actually get to do this?Advertising – when you're building a brand – is merely a relationship deepener. Its job is to cause the public to like you and trust you. Accomplish this and they'll remember you when they, or any of their circle, need what you sell.Good news: A seductive new voice in advertising is softening the hearts and winning the wallets of our nation at a record pace. This new future of advertising is known as “non ads” – consumer messages written in the vulnerable, candid style of a conversation between close friends. Their language isn't aggressive and egocentric like advertising, but unguarded, playful and real. Non-ads admit weaknesses, confess fears, and never try to impress. They speak to the customer in the language of a friend, rather than a pitchman. Does it surprise you that the natural response of the customer is to give you their trust? But here's the bigger question: Do you have the courage to be a friend, tell the truth, and worry more about your customer's happiness than your own?My strong suggestion is that you adopt it sooner rather than later. The following examples of two real non-ads I've encountered lately should help you better understand this new concept and begin implementing it today.Example #1You're seated in 12-B, reading an in-flight magazine. The following words appear in white letters against a medium olive background, no photograph or graphic:Isn't it amazing how people will read anything at 36,000 ft? You, for instance, are reading this. And even though it's quite obviously an ad, and you're skeptical of advertising, you'll continue reading it. See, here you are, still reading. C'mon, don't try to deny it. And why are you still reading? Not because you find it particularly captivating, but because it's here. And you're here. And you've already exhausted your mandatory, meaningless airplane chit-chat time with your neighbor. So right about now you're probably asking yourself, 'Why am I still reading this?' Perhaps you're even pretending you're not reading it anymore. You're going to close this magazine up right now and slip it back into that pocket up there. But wait, you're still reading it, aren't you? You can't help yourself. It's here. You're here. And you still can't use your cell phone until you reach the tarmac. By the way, we know a really good bookstore around here.At the bottom of the page is the logo for Verizon and in larger letters, “Superpages.com, We know around here.”Like you and trust you. That's the goal.Example #2Walk into the men's room at Robbins Bros., The World's Biggest Engagement Ring Store, and here's what you'll see covering

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 – those tiny orbiting electrons – that hold our universe together.Commitment. Purpose. Focus. Passion. These are the electrons of Happiness. Orbiting our actions. Binding us together. Keeping us from flying apart.Shift gears, new subject: Is commitment a manifestation of passion, or the cause of it? In other words, are we committed because we have a purpose? Or do we have a purpose because we chose to commit? (Please don't make me tell you the answer. I'm begging you to see it for yourself…)Ah. You see it now. I'm relieved.I'm alarmed at the number of people who act as though purpose is somehow inherent, tied to destiny, a thing mysteriously willed to a chosen few by the gods. They moan, “I don't have a purpose. I don't have a passion. I'm not happy.”Frankly, it's all I can do to keep from slapping them.Let me say this plainly: Your life's purpose will be chosen by you. It's a decision you will make. If you're waiting for your purpose to drop mysteriously from the sky, you're wasting what could have been a wonderful life.Passion comes from having a focus.Focus comes from having a purpose.Purpose comes from having made a commitment.To whom or what will you choose to commit?Shift again, third subject: The world stands knee-deep in unrewarded talent because most people are unable to survive the death of their dream.Every dream of the future is a seed. But until your dream falls into the ground and dies, it cannot burst from the ground and deliver the harvest you seek.Is your commitment strong enough to survive the death of your dream? Will you be found still hanging on when hope has fled, the room is dark and everyone believes you a fool?Believe it or not, this is usually the key to the miracles that follow.Roy H. Williams

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 breakfast, listening to the smelly, funny stories of downtrodden people who know each other well. Their sparkling banter gives me a glimpse into problems I'll never touch, victories I'll never celebrate, a life I'll never have. These are they who will never have internet access, a credit card or cable TV.But they seem happy.I've come here to learn what it means to be an outsider in America.People tell me they want to write. I respond, “You can't find a pencil?” In truth, few want to write. Most want only to have written. People tell me they want to travel, have adventures, meet interesting people and learn about different cultures. They want to expand their world. I'm betting you can guess my answer to that one… “If you will expand your world, you must crawl on your hands and knees, get on your belly and squirm under the fence that surrounds your insulated life.”For most people, travel means being pampered by accommodating servants in exotic places. But interesting people, strange cultures and high adventure don't await you on the other side of the world. They await you on the other side of town.Are you willing to get on your belly and crawl under that fence? Will you invest an hour to enlarge your world? If you will actually do it, not just think about it, but really do it, and write to me about it, I will send you a special gift of initiation. These are the rules:1. You must arrive and be seated in a 24-hour eating establishment between 1:30AM and 5:30AM in a part of town where you rarely go. Or perhaps a truckstop beyond town's edge. The further outside your comfort zone, the better.2. If a man, you must go alone. If a woman and concerned for your safety, you can take one other person with you. But make sure your friend understands the goal isn't to chat with each other, but to glimpse a whole other world that exists side-by-side with the one you know.3. While you're eating and listening and absorbing this strange new reality, think of what these people need most and how you might help them get it. While you're at it, you might also think a little about what they have that you don't. There is a rich sense of community among the outcast.4. Write the details of your excursion within 24 hours of your meal and email them to [email protected] Be sure to provide a mailing address where we can send your special Gift of Initiation. I don't yet know what it will be.Want to hear something that will shock you? I'm fairly confident that fewer than 12 readers from among my 31,000 subscribers will actually do what I've just described, and more than half of these will be Canadian. We Americans are unlikely to discomfort ourselves except for purposes of recreation.How accurate are my predictions? A few weeks ago when I offered to send readers a free copy of my favorite book, I accurately predicted for the shipping department – within seven – the precise number of people who would respond to that offer. (Yes, that number was deep into the hundreds.)Will you join this strange new fraternity? Your gift of initiation awaits.Roy H. Williams

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 by the strength of your advertising. It will be determined partly by the strength of your competitors.How good are you at what you do? How good are they?There are 4 factors that determine business success. The most important of these, competitive environment, is the factor most often ignored. The reason, I suppose, is that business owners feel they can do nothing about it. So they ignore their competitors.But their customers don't.The ability to measure your strength objectively and compare it to the strength of your competitors is essential to strategic planning.This is why Wizard Academy is developing a six-sigma Customer Experience Index, a patented instrument that will allow you to know – precisely and objectively– how you compare to each of your competitors locally. The same instrument will also compare your scores to national averages for your category in a number of critical customer touch-points. Sound interesting? Stay tuned. A Beta version of the instrument will be released in Summer '06.Today we'll take a brief look at the four factors that govern business success. (In weeks to come we'll zoom in for a closer examination of each.) In order of importance they are:1. Competitive Environment (strength of competitors)2. Business Model (strategy. creation of customer expectations.)3. Operational Execution (delivery of what was promised to the customer.)4. Message Development (total business communication, including ad writing, décor, media planning, etc.)When released, the Customer Experience Index will objectively measure what had previously been unmeasurable.And you're the first to know.Roy H. Williams

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. It's something I've heard you talk about a hundred times.”“What is it?”“You know who Peter Drucker is?”“Management guy.”“Yeah. The story tells how his bestselling book, the one containing the most detailed, step-by-step instructions, is the one nobody reads anymore. The Drucker books they're studying in all the big colleges today are the ones that were poorly received at first and didn't sell very well. You talked to me about this sort of thing on the day we met.”“I remember. 'The loneliest people are the ones ahead of their time.'”Ludwig von Beethoven knew this outsider phenomenon well. Many of the musical compositions we consider to be his greatest today were panned by the critics of his time. Even his own musicians were confused by them. When the famed violinist Radicati asked Beethoven about these pieces he replied, “Oh, those are not for you, but for a later age.”We are that later age.Thankfully, Ludwig von Beethoven didn't let the dullness of the public palate affect what he chose to create. In other words, Ludy didn't pander to the finger-snapping jingle crowd.In my mind, I ask Ludwig why he doesn't try to write the kind of music that sells. I see him there. He looks quietly at me for a moment, then curls a lip, looks at the ground and spits. Then he looks back up at me. After a moment's hesitation I nod.But I'm not the only one nodding.“When a true genius appears in this world, you may know him by this sign, that the dunces are all in confederacy against him.” – Jonathan Swift, author of Gulliver's Travels“Great spirits have often encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds.” – Albert Einstein“Funeral by funeral, science makes progress.” – Paul Samuelson. Yes, even scientists who are ahead of their time are rejected by their peers.The magnificent Emily Dickinson wrote with complete confidence that her words would never be read. It was only when her family looked in her bureau drawer on the day she died that they found 1,700 poems that would quickly be ranked among the greatest ever written.Emily Dickinson knew a freedom not felt by other writers. And it made her words soar. Feel them cut like shimmering blades:FAME is a fickle foodUpon a shifting plate,Whose table once a Guest, but notThe second time, is set.Whose crumbs the crows inspect,And with ironic cawFlap past it to the Farmer's corn;Men eat of it and die.Emily Dickinson was like Beethoven in that she had no need for public praise. She wrote for herself, an audience of one. Study the lives of the Great Ones and you'll find this to be a common characteristic among them.Cyril Connolly said it best: “Better to write for yourself and have no public, than to write for the public and have no self.”I believe Peter Drucker, Jonathan Swift and Albert Einstein would agree.Ludy Von would, too.Emily says she's in.How about you? Do you have something new and different to say?Are you willing to write for an audience of one?Roy H. Williams

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 will generate enough brand magnetism to pull customers into their store. Due to the fact that a franchisor can afford to create a higher quality ad campaign than the typical local merchant, this strategy often succeeds.Category-specific ads are written broadly enough to fit every advertiser in a category. A transparent fabric of smoothly woven clichés, a category-specific ad is a generalized template into which one merely inserts a store name and address. “All you have to do is fill in the blanks.” But remember: Ads that fit everyone don't work very well for anyone. These were once called institutional ads. I do not recommend them.Product-specific ads benefit every retailer who sells the product, but they aren't really about the retailer at all. They're about the product. This is why the independent retailer should question whether or not to take the manufacturer's fifty cents to run their product-specific ads. Are they really paying for half of your advertising, or are you paying for half of theirs? Only when the co-op requirements are extremely flexible do I recommend that independent retailers accept the so-called “free money” offered by manufacturers. If you're paying half the cost, be sure at least half the message is about you.Store-specific ads are the foundation of local branding, but to write them requires intimate, detailed research on the part of an expert ad writer. Rarely will a good, store-specific ad fit another advertiser in the same category. The story I'm about to tell you is true. I've changed only the name of the store, the town, and the vegetable:Heisenberg's Jewelers had been in the same building on Main Street in Cabbage Valley for 105 years. A facelift 7 years earlier had given the store white carpet, walnut paneling and a huge chandelier in a high, domed ceiling. Heisenberg's was the Sistine Chapel of jewelry stores. Not a problem, except that Cabbage Valley is the turnip capital of the world, a little farming community of about 45,000 people. Even the wealthiest of Cabbage Valley's farmers felt they weren't dressed well enough to enter that store. Heisenberg's was truly an intimidating place.“You need to understand who our customer is,” my client told me as soon as I arrived. “Our customer is a 40 year-old woman with money. Upscale. Very upscale. Well dressed. Always buys the best. That's our customer. That's who you need to target.” This was in mid-October. I had been hired by Heisenberg's to help save Christmas because if they had another season as bad as the previous six, they were going to have to close their doors in January.“Let's get something straight,” I told them. “There's no handle I can crank that will spit out 40 year-old rich women. I'm going to have to write ads that appeal to men or you're going to have to find another way to make a living.” It's statements like those that separate consultants from salesmen.This is the radio ad that saved Heisenberg's:“Ladies, many of you will be fortunate enough this Christmas to find a small, but beautifully wrapped package under your tree bearing a simple gold seal that says 'Heisenberg's.' Now you and I both know there's jewelry in the box. But the man who put it there for you is trying desperately to tell you that you are more precious than diamonds, more valuable than gold, and very, very special. You see, he could have gone to a department store and bought department store jewelry, or picked up something at the mall like all the other husbands. But the men who come to Heisenberg's aren't trying to get off cheap or easy. Men who come to Heisenberg's

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 instead on an interesting saying, quote, or phrase unrelated to your problem. Crawl inside that bit of wisdom and look at your problem from this cozy new perspective. Don't be surprised if your chosen phrase works like Ali Baba's “Open Sesame,” and throws open the door to innovation, wealth, and recognition.The secret to conjuring powerful strategy – also known as coming up with The Big Idea – is to free your beagle. Abandon the linear, sequential logic of your brain's left hemisphere and engage the pattern recognition of the right.Last week I wrote to you about commitment, persistence. I had a reason.“Just as a dog guards a bone safely between its paws when not actively chewing it, creative people nurture an idea even when not actively thinking about it… Creativity does not result from mysterious visions that come in dreams, or from fortuitous circumstances. Creativity and persistence are synonymous. Constantly thinking about the problem, consciously and unconsciously, maximizes the possibility that a chance occurrence is likely to be useful in solving it.” – Dr. Richard Cytowic, neurologistPick a problem that's had you handcuffed. Now let's create a “chance occurrence” like the one mentioned by Cytowic. We're going to let your beagle sniff a trail from it to your new solution:1. Go to the home page of Wizard Academy and see, in the center of that page, the random quote that was generated for you from my personal collection of nigh a thousand.2. Ponder how the core idea of that quote relates to the problem you've been trying to solve. Find a link. Use the quote as a new point of origin. Let it pull you outside the box.3. Write down the solution triggered by the quote, no matter how ridiculous.4. Click the quote generator to launch a new quote and do it all over again. “Everything in the universe is connected, of course. It's a matter of using imagination to discover the links, and language to expand and enliven them.” – Tom RobbinsIf you were able to successfully unleash the beagle in your brain, you should have 3 new “outside the box” solutions in under 4 minutes. Continue to generate random quotes and apply them to your problem until one of them makes you laugh. Then walk away from your computer and go do something with your hands. Carry out the trash. Hang those mini-blinds you bought but never installed. Vacuum the car.Don't be surprised when your beagle reappears with a juicy rabbit of an idea. One that will really work.Happy Holidays.Roy H. Williams

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 plate;And now the pitcher holds the ball, and now he lets it go,And now the air is shattered by the force of Casey's blow.Oh, somewhere in this favored land the sun is shining bright,The band is playing somewhere, and somewhere hearts are light;And somewhere men are laughing, and somewhere children shout,But there is no joy in Mudville – mighty Casey has struck out.I've known men like Casey, haven't you? All hat, no cattle? Big bravado, little substance? An alligator mouth with a baboon butt?I'm sorry, but “merely determined” people seem shallow to me. Like Casey at the Bat, they get themselves all worked up, then just as quickly get unworked and wander off to do something else. Determination is transient.But commitment is irrevocable, a decision that never looks back.Ask someone you admire how they accomplished what they did, and they'll likely tell you a story of despair and the strong temptation to chuck it all, throw in the towel and quit. But they didn't. They hung on a little longer. And then one more day. And another…Big things happen for the truly committed on the far side of the breaking point, long after the merely determined have quit and gone home. Does this sound unreasonable to you? Consider the words of George Bernard Shaw: “The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends upon the unreasonable man.”George Bernard Shaw understood commitment.So did Margaret Mead. “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed citizens can change the world; indeed, that is the only thing that ever has.”Commitment steps up to pay the price when mere Determination runs for cover.I speak of marriage, faith, and business.In chapter 19 of the first book of Kings, Elijah, in a dark mood, runs to a cave in the wilderness and pours out his complaints to God, who instructs him to go and find Elisha, son of Shaphat, plowing with twelve yoke of oxen. Elijah found him and draped his cloak around Elisha's shoulders. Recognizing that he'd been chosen to finish the job begun by Elijah, Elisha immediately slaughtered his oxen and cooked their meat over the fires of his plowing equipment. Elisha gave the meat to his co-workers and family, then set out to follow Elijah and become his attendant.Elisha, a farmer, killed his oxen and burned his plow, leaving himself nothing to fall back on.That, my friend, is commitment.Is there anything to which you are truly and deeply committed? Is there anything for which you would kill your ox and burn your plow?On the day you can answer yes, you will have learned what it means to be genuinely happy.Roy H. Williams

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 detail the kind of place they'd like to shop. Then build that place, exactly as described, and see if they ever show up.Experience tells us they won't.We'll use furniture stores as an example. People say they want a store where they can look at all the different styles of furniture, see all the different patterns and colors of fabric and grains of wood and colors of wood stain, and then have their own 'dream furniture' made according to their choices. Today you'll find that furniture store on every corner. “And we'll even show you on a computer monitor exactly what your new sofa will look like! Want to see it in another fabric? Click this button. Another color of wood? Click this button. And we'll deliver it to your home, direct from the factory! You'll be buying factory direct!” But that's not how the big boys do it.His real name is Jim McIngvale. They call him Mattress Mac. Twenty-five years ago he dove headlong into the furniture business with just five thousand dollars. It's all he had. This year that furniture store will do nearly 200 million dollars in a single location, placing it among the most successful stores in the world.Jim occasionally buys a day of my time to pick my brain and bounce ideas off me. I should be paying him.During our last visit, I asked my friend if I could share the secret of his success with you. Graciously, he allowed it: As simple as this may sound, Jim's 200 million dollar secret is immediate delivery. When people buy new furniture, they want to see it in their home immediately. “Buy it today and we'll deliver it tonight,” is Jim's angle. He doesn't do special orders. “If you see it, we've got it.” Remember all those people who said they wanted to pick from a large selection of fabrics and wood grains? Tell them you'll deliver their new sofa in 8 to 12 weeks. Then Jim will show them something entirely different but offer to deliver it immediately. Guess who usually wins?What people say they would do is rarely what they will actually do. This is what makes it foolish to put too much faith in surveys. We don't know ourselves as well as we think.Ask any real estate agent. The homes people buy are never the ones they described to the agent when they got in the car. Not even close.Now let's talk about you. Chances are, you've been reaching the right people all along. You've just been saying the wrong things. Some ads are like waving raw meat in front of hungry dogs. Most ads are lectures, explaining to these same dogs all the joys of organic popcorn.Do you have a tasty message to deliver to the world? Or are you expecting your ad writers to apply a thick layer of creativity to hide the fact that you have nothing to say?Truthfully, what percentage of your ads say anything worth hearing?Sholem Asch was right when he said, “Writing comes more easily if you have something to say.” But Morris Hite said it brazenly, “If you have a good selling idea, your secretary can write your ad for you.”We're here if you need us.Roy H. Williams

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. Handwringers who talk about the problem to anyone who will listen. “You just won't believe what I'm going through.”2. Dark worriers who internalize the problem, then grow despondent and depressed. “Life sucks and then you die.”3. Positive thinkers who prop themselves up with platitudes: “When the going gets tough, the tough get going.” “God helps those who help themselves.” “It's not the size of dog in the fight that counts, it's the size of fight in the dog,” etc.4. Analytical planners who gather the data, calculate the odds, do whatever makes the most sense, then resign themselves to the eventual outcome. “I've done all that I can do.”5. People who abandon steps 1 through 4 and run to God like little girls. “Daddy! Daddy! Save me!”Does it surprise you that I've always been part of the run-to-God crowd?I'm not trying to be religious here. I'm trying to be helpful.Many of you will find today's memo completely irrelevant. I realize that. But with 31,000 readers, I've got to believe that at least a few hundred feel they are suffocating in darkness. (If you're in the sunshine-and-song, problem-free majority, you're free to quit reading right now if you like:)It seems to me that we're reluctant to run to God for different reasons:1. Doubt. “God doesn't exist and I'll not demean myself by caving in to that Myth after a lifetime of self-sufficiency.”2. Pride. “I ought to be able to handle this on my own.”3. Religiosity. “God is sovereign. If I suffer, it is because He has willed it.”4. Shame. “I haven't earned the right to ask God for anything.”Doubt has never been a problem for me. Maybe someday I'll tell you why.Pride is one of my less endearing traits. Frankly, I'm as territorial an alpha-male as any redneck bastard that ever drank Budweiser. But I have no pride when I ponder God. I'm arrogant. But I'm not stupid.Religiosity. I agree with Arthur C. Clarke, who said, “You can't have it both ways. You can't have both free will and a benevolent higher power who protects you from yourself.” In other words, I believe a once-sovereign God gave up absolute control of our circumstances on the day he gave us free will and put us in charge of this world. “Religiosity” is also what Tom, a friend of Anne Lamott, was talking about when he said, “You can safely assume you've created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do.”Shame. Like you, I've never earned the right to run to God like a little girl crying “Daddy, Daddy, Save me.” Certainly not. Instead, I take the position, “Jesus, let's not make this about how good I am. Let's make this about how good you are.”Call me crazy. Call me delusional. Call me a hopeless romantic, but I believe in a God who likes me and is on my side. And I am no stranger to miracles.Do you need a miracle? Like it or not, I've given you what has always worked for me. It's the very best advice I've got: “God, let's not make this about how good I am. Let's make it about how good you are.”Thanksgiving has always been my favorite holiday.Are there things for which you are thankful?Roy H. Williams

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 women?” was hyperlinked to additional information. Judging from the record number who clicked that link, What Women Really Want remains one of the great, unsolved mysteries of man.The hyperlinked phrase, of course, took you to the course description for Michele Miller's class on marketing to women. Those who clicked her free, streaming video found the answer. But for rest of you, my cliffhanging question remains unanswered.Allow me to rectify.Women want connectedness.John Donne wrote in 1624, “No man is an island.” But I disagree. Men are very often islands – voluntarily solitary. But I would agree that no woman is an island. Women are the connected ones, the glue, the binding agents in every family, whether a family by genetics or a family by choice. Women are the bringers of Together.“Men use language to establish status. Their measurements are up and down. 'What do you think of me now that I've said this? Am I up or down? Up or down?' But women use language to establish bonds of connection, near and far. 'How close are we now that I've said this?'” – Dr. Nick Grant, adjunct faculty, Wizard Academy“What a woman wants is someone who will listen to her.” – Donna Pinciotti, on That 70's Show, explaining why a beautiful girl canceled her date with Kelso to go out with Fez instead.In the world of women, what is romance but a thousand points of connectedness? Listen, men, and learn.My mother taught me all this when I was thirteen. She probably didn't think I was listening at the time, but it was one of those moments when that strange camera in my brain went “click.” “What a woman wants,” she told me, “is to know in her heart that someone considers her the most important thing in the world.”Study aberrant human behavior and you'll find that mass murderers are always men. Crazy women don't kill strangers. They have no connectedness with strangers. Crazy women kill their children.The cognoscenti will recall my comments on brain lateralization: “In Myers-Briggs terminology, the left-brain preferences are E,S,T, and J. The right-brain preferences are I, N, F, and P.” The left-brain is considered to be the masculine hemisphere; deductive reasoning, up or down. The right-brain is the feminine, intuitive hemisphere; pattern recognition, points of connectedness.Aha.Roy H. Williams

“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 opposite? Woman always stands just where the man’s shadow falls, so that he is only too liable to confuse the two. Then, when he tries to repair this misunderstanding, he overvalues her and believes her the most desirable thing in the world.” – Carl Jung, Women In Europe“I think the idealization of women is indigenous to men. There are various ways of idealizing women, especially sexually, based in almost every case on their inaccessibility. When a woman functions as an unobtainable love object, she takes on a mythical quality. You can see this principle functioning as a sales device in advertising and in places like Playboy magazine. Almost every movie you see has this quality, because you can’t embrace the image on the screen. Thousands of novels use this principle, because you can’t embrace a printed image on a page.” – James Dickey, Self Interviews, p. 153In New York Harbor stands a lady. And a stone woman holds the scales in front of every courthouse in the land. And we conjure these twins by name with every dying breath of our Pledge of Allegiance, “…with Liberty and Justice for all.”Airplanes, ships, cars and guitars are given feminine names. If a thing is beautiful and important and precious to us, we always see it as a woman.When a man buys a diamond, he’s paying for the reaction of the woman he loves. He’s paying for that look on her face. He doesn’t care about the properties of the diamond itself; color, cut, clarity and carat weight. He cares only about the woman. In your ads, don’t make him imagine the sparkle of the diamond. Make him see the sparkle of the woman.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 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 as, “Lowest prices anywhere. We won't be undersold.” No one believes hype anymore. I'm talking about a statement that is bona fide, no loopholes, easy to experience. And it only takes one such statement to put a business over the top. This is why you should designate a percentage of your ad budget to purchase word-of-mouth advertising.Word-of-mouth is credible because a person puts their reputation on the line every time they make a recommendation. And that person has nothing to gain but the appreciation of those who are listening. What are you doing to make sure your potential ambassadors feel secure? What are you doing to trigger word-of-mouth?1. Word-of-mouth is triggered when a customer experiences something far beyond what was expected. Slightly exceeding their expectations just won't do it.2. Don't depend on your staff to trigger word-of-mouth by delivering “exceptional customer service.” Good service is expected. It's bad service we talk about. Great service can increase customer retention and generate lots of positive feedback to the business owner, but rarely is it the basis for word-of-mouth advertising.3. Physical, nonverbal statements are the most dependable in triggering word-of-mouth. These statements can be architectural, kinetic, or generous, but they must go far beyond the boundaries of what is normal.4. BUDGET to DELIVER the experience that will trigger word-of-mouth. Sometimes your word-of-mouth budget will be incremental, so that its cost is tied to your customer count. Other times it will require a capital investment, so that repayment will have to be withheld from your advertising budget over a period of years. The greatest danger isn't in overspending, but in under spending. Under spending for a word-of-mouth trigger is like buying a ticket halfway to Europe.5. Don't promise it in your ads. Although it's tempting to promise the thing you're counting on to trigger word-of-mouth, these promises will only eliminate the possibility of your customer becoming your ambassador. Why would a customer repeat what you say about yourself in your ads? You must allow your customer to deliver the good news. Don't rob your ambassador of their moment in the sun.Your word-of-mouth trigger can be architectural, kinetic, or generous.1. Architectural: This can be product design, store design, fantasy décor, etc. The piano store that looks like a huge piano, with black and white keys forming the long awning over the long front porch. The erupting volcano outside the Mirage in Las Vegas. A glass-bottom floor that allows customers to see what's happening far below them. Do you remember when McDonalds began building playgrounds attached to all their restaurants? It worked like magic for 20 years.2. Kinetic: Activity. Motion. “Performance” by every definition of the word. The tossing of fresh fish from one employee to another at Pike Place Market in Seattle, (the inspiration for FISH!, that bestselling book and training film.) The magical, twirling knives of the tableside chefs at Benihana. Kissing the codfish when you get “screeched in” at any pub in Newfoundland. (A screech-in is a loud and funny ceremony where non-Newfoundlanders down a shot of cheap rum, repeat some phrases in the local dialect, and kiss a codfish. Everyone who visits that wonderful island returns home with a story of being “screeched in.”) While it may at first seem like a staff-driven, kinetic word-of-mouth trigger is a violation of number 2 above, “Don't depend on your...

We're building a school of the communication arts. Do you want to come along?Oh, the questions we'll answer together! The interesting things we'll find! We've built a chapel where we can think big thoughts. And a grand auditorium where we can exchange ideas. The things we'll talk about!We need only a place to lay our heads when day is over and twilight darkens and campfires dim and talk is done. Will you help us build this place?The Mainstream Many saw only rickety old windmills and a delusional old man. But Don Quixote saw defiant giants that had to be defeated for the good of the world.“What giants?” said Sancho Panza.“Those you see there,” answered his master, “with the long arms, and some have them nearly two leagues long.”“Look, your worship,'' said Sancho. “What we see there are not giants but windmills, and what seem to be their arms are the vanes that turn by the wind and make the millstone go.”“It is easy to see,” replied Don Quixote, “that you are not used to this business of adventures.”– Don Quixote, 1605, by Miguel de CervantesI can relate to Don Quixote, can't you? Like him, I often feel that no one else sees the ugly giants that loom so large on my horizon. And like Quixote, I'm often told I'm delusional and irrelevant.But the giants I see are real.The Mainstream Many believe that all is well, education isn't broken, journalism hasn't lost its way, music and literature and art were never really important, and traditional advertising is working just fine. “All is well,” the many tell us. But when you look again with the eyes of your heart, you'll see a nation growing dumber, journalism becoming propaganda, art fading into yesterday, and advertising working less and less well.There are currently 30,299 readers of these Monday Morning Memos who see the same giants I see. And together we're building Wizard Academy, a school of the communication arts. Our goal is to enhance the world's ability to communicate. I'm not talking about inventing new devices to help us reach each other. We already have those. I'm talking about knowing better what to say through this vast megaphone of technology. And how to say it better.The citizens of the world have been handed cell phones and DVRs, satellite phones and Skype, websites and blogs, email attachments and streaming video and podcasting and Boomerang. We are children with loaded guns. Do you remember when terrorists beheaded an American and streamed his murder onto the internet? Millions of curious voyeurs witnessed it on their computer monitors. How many of those do you suppose were 8 year-olds who will forever carry the itching scab of that wound in their minds? No, don't tell me it was the same as in video games. Even 8 year-olds know that video games aren't real.He was wearing an orange jump suit.Can new messages be created to counteract that message? I believe they can. The next 3-day Magical Worlds Communications Workshop is scheduled for Dec. 6-8 at the new, 33-acre campus of Wizard Academy. You really should come and spend time with us.Maybe we're crazy, tilting at windmills. Maybe we're defeating giants. You decide.Roy H. Williams

How many months has it been since you went looking for information in the yellow pages? How many minutes has it been since you asked your favorite search engine?I think you just answered the question about whether or not your local business needs a website.Without a doubt, websites are the most overlooked vehicle of advertising for small, owner-operated businesses. Every retailer needs one. Every dentist, lawyer, accountant and minister needs one. Every café, restaurant, coffee shop and nightclub needs one. Every wholesale supply company needs one.I'm not suggesting that all these need to accept online orders and actually transact business online. I'm just saying that everyone listed in yesterday's yellow pages needs to be available on today's internet. It's where your customers expect to find you.Properly constructed, a website allows your prospects to gather information from the privacy of their computer monitors. What are the questions you answer every day? And what, exactly, do you say to customers when you're speaking to them face-to-face? This is exactly the information that needs to be available on your website.Think of your website as a relationship deepener, a half-step between your advertising and your front door.Do you suppose it's easier:(1.) to convince customers to visit your website, or(2.) to convince them to get in their car, drive to your store, park that car and walk in your door?Additionally, internet is heaven-on-earth for the 49 percent of our population that's introverted.Introverts prefer to gather information anonymously, unlikely to dial your telephone number except as a last resort. Even more unlikely is that they'll choose to walk into your store and engage a chatty salesperson. But don't think introverts are shy. They simply like to gather the facts before putting themselves into a position where they're likely to be asked to answer questions. Forty-nine percent of your customers prefer to know what they're coming to buy before they walk in your door. And even the extraverted, chatty 51 percent will appreciate an informative website that functions as an expert salesperson during the hours you're not open for business.Don't think for a moment that your customers aren't already online.Every time a client tells me their customers are too old, too monied, or too traditional to be online, I immediately gather a crowd of them and ask, “How many of you have used a search engine in the past 7 days to research a product or service you were considering?” I raise my own hand.The hands raised in echo are never less than 85 percent of the crowd.Launch a website. Make it interesting. And watch your in-store sales begin to climb.Roy H. Williams

Mabel is a widow deep in poverty with two hungry children of her own. Washing other people’s laundry ten hours a day, Mabel earns barely enough money to keep them fed. To keep a roof over their heads, she works for a real estate man who moves her and the children from shack to shack “to clean them up and make them salable.” But poor though she is, Mabel can’t watch a baby go unloved, so she makes room in her home and her heart for Jimmy, an abandoned baby that was left on her doorstep.Throughout his childhood, Jimmy will wear old, second-hand clothes because that’s the best Mabel can do. His shoelaces will be broken and knotted. He’ll never own a pair of skates, a bicycle, a baseball glove or a toy of any kind. But when his little town opens a public library, he and a girl named Margaret will be the first in line to receive library cards. One day, as the pair are searching for books they’ve not yet read, the librarian says, “Goodness, Margaret and Jimmy, I believe you’ve read all the children’s books we have! If you wish, you can start on the other shelves.”Margaret Mead will grow up to author 20 books and serve as president of a number of important scientific associations, including the American Anthropological Association and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. She will receive 28 honorary doctorate degrees from America’s leading universities and in 1978, be given the Presidential Medal of Freedom.As an adolescent, Jimmy hitchhikes his way from Pennsylvania to Florida and back again with only 35 cents in his pocket. By the time he graduates from high school, he will have visited all but 3 of the 48 contiguous states. In the Navy, Jim rises to the rank of lieutenant commander, serving on some 49 different islands in the South Pacific during World War II. Each night, he writes his thoughts and impressions in a journal.“Sitting there in the darkness, illuminated only by the flickering lamplight, I visualized the aviation scenes in which I had participated, the landing beaches I’d seen, the remote outposts, the exquisite islands with bending palms, and especially the valiant people I’d known: the French planters, the Australian coast watchers, the Navy nurses, the Tonkinese laborers, the ordinary sailors and soldiers who were doing the work, and the primitive natives to whose jungle fastnesses I had traveled.”The book that will emerge from Jim’s journal will be published as Tales of the South Pacific and win the Pulitzer Prize in 1948. And by the time he’s done, James Michener will have written more than 40 books that will collectively sell more than 100 million copies. He will be granted more than 30 honorary doctorates in 5 fields and receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1977. His cash donations to public libraries and universities will exceed 117 million dollars.It seems a child can learn a lot by just reading.Roy H. Williams

No one wants to be average. But everyone wants to be normal.What's up with that?You can't imitate your way to excellence. It can be achieved only by breaking away from the pack, abandoning the status quo.But breaking away from the pack is also the way to spectacular failure.Are you beginning to understand why there is so little excellence in the world?A weird person who succeeds is called eccentric. A weird person who fails is called a loser. Most people just walk the middle path and wonder what might have been.If there is, somewhere, a Book of Days, what will be written in it about you? Will the book say you played it safe, never took a chance and were buried in such-and-such a place?I think Tom Peters gave excellent advice to managers when he said, “Reward excellent failures. Punish mediocre successes.”The New York Times tells us, “She embarked on a show-business career at 15 by going to Manhattan and enrolling in John Murray Anderson's dramatic school. From the first, she was repeatedly told she had no talent and should return home. She tried and failed to get into four Broadway chorus lines, so she became a model for commercial photographers. She won national attention as the Chesterfield Cigarette Girl in 1933. This got her to Hollywood as a Goldwyn chorus girl. For the next two years she played unbilled, bit roles in two dozen movies. She then spent seven years at RKO, where she got leading roles in low-budget movies. But she was wrongly cast and mostly wasted in films.”In all, Lucille Ball appeared in 72 B-movies before she became too old to be credible as a female love-interest. Her lackluster career on the silver screen ended without fanfare in 1948. So at the age of 37, Lucy left the movies, swallowed her pride and became Liz Cooper on the live radio show, My Favorite Husband.Jess Oppenheimer, her director, tells the story. “I remember telling Lucy, 'Let go. Act it out. Take your time.' But she was simply afraid to try. So one day, at rehearsal, I handed Lucy a couple of Jack Benny tickets. She looked at me blankly. 'What are these for?''I want you to go to school,' I told her.It did the trick. When Lucy came into the studio for the next rehearsal, I could see she was excited. 'Oh my God, Jess,' she gushed, 'I didn't realize!'She just couldn't wait to get started trying out the new, emancipated attitude she had discovered. On that week's show Lucy really hammed it up, playing it much broader than she ever had before. She coupled this with her newfound freedom of movement, and there were times I thought we'd have to catch her with a butterfly net to get her back to the microphone. The audience roared their approval, and Lucy loved it. So did I.”Released from her fear, Lucy Ricardo had been born.In 1951, a middle-aged Lucy leaped out from our black-and-white television screens into every living room in America. “To say that Lucille Ball was a phenomenon is an understatement. Through sheer determination and hard work, this one woman fundamentally changed the broadcast industry forever.” – Susan Lacy, winner of 5 Emmys as executive producer of American MastersMost people, when they finally become successful, become conservative. Fearful of losing what they've gained, they abandon the behaviors that brought them success. But not Lucy. As the fearless owner of Desilu Studios, she took two enormous chances: Star Trek and Mission: Impossible. American television would never be the same.On April 27, 1989, the New York Times ran her obituary. Its last few sentences were these:Addressing a

Relentless repetition was once enough to drive your message home. But it isn't quite that simple anymore. The impact of your message in this over-communicated hour depends largely on the structural basis of your statements.A statement is either fact-based or values-based.A fact-based statement must be true or false. If true, it is a correct statement. If false, it is incorrect. But it is a fact-based statement either way.Fact-based statements can be proven or disproven objectively. They cannot, by nature, include opinion. But the 'truth' of a values-based statement hinges on agreed-upon values. Consequently, values-based statements have the look and feel of fact-based statements to persons of the same opinion.“Our parking lot has spaces for 38 cars” is a fact-based statement. It can be proven or disproven objectively. Just count the spaces. Personal values and opinions don't matter.“There's always plenty of parking” is a values-based statement. (How much parking, exactly, is 'plenty'?)“D-color diamonds are more rare than J-color diamonds,” is a fact-based statement.“D-color diamonds are more beautiful than J-color diamonds,” is a values-based statement. (And in my opinion, entirely untrue.)“The Academy Reunion and Open House is October 15 on the new campus of Wizard Academy,” is a fact-based statement.“We've planned some fabulous surprises for you,” is values based.“Iraq has weapons of mass destruction” is a fact-based statement.“Saddam Hussein is a bad ruler” is entirely values-based.Calm down. I use that example only to illustrate how quickly disagreements can arise over statements that are values-based.Modern advertising overflows with values-based statements: “Big selection.” “High quality.” “Low prices.” “Easy credit.” Even though these statements may be true in the mind of the advertiser, the public has heard them all before.The left hemispheres of our brains detect fact-based statements and prefer them to statements that are values-based. Having been suffocated by hype for the past 40 years, we hunger today for statements of fact.Seven years ago I wrote a chapter called The 12 Most Common Mistakes in Advertising. Among those mistakes was, “4. Unsubstantiated claims. Advertisers often claim to have what the customer wants, such as 'highest quality at the lowest price,' but fail to offer any evidence. An unsubstantiated claim is nothing more than a cliché the prospect is tired of hearing. You must prove what you say in every ad. Do your ads give the prospect new information? Do they provide a new perspective? If not, prepare to be disappointed with the results.” Today I accelerate that statement: If you would persuade today's hype-resistant customer, you must learn to make fact-based statements in your ads.Specifics are more believable than generalities.Roy H. Williams

Do you want more free time? Then you must buy it. Free time is never free.There are only four ways you can buy free time:1. Work fewer hours. Learn to say no. You'll have more free time immediately.Cost: Lost opportunities, reduced income.2. Develop systems, methods and procedures that save time.Cost: Time and money spent in developing those systems, methods and procedures.3. Recruit, hire, train and manage other people to do your work for you.Cost: Time and money spent in recruiting, hiring, training and managing.I heartily recommend these three methods. But I recommend against number four:4. Be the recipient of a large inheritance or insurance settlement, win the lottery, marry a rich person.Cost: Loss of identity, loss of self.That last statement will surely win me a flurry of emails from angry “happy people” who married someone rich. “How dare you say that! I married a rich person and my life has been full and complete.” Okay, so you're the rare exception. But I'm sure you'll agree that money is an insulator. It shields us from problems, and perhaps that's good. But it shields us from challenges as well. Money is the glove that keeps us from feeling the texture and ripples of life.Nothing is so rewarding as making a difference. Especially when it involves self-sacrifice. But when a challenge can be overcome by the mere stroke of your pen, the reward always seems less intimate. Is this perhaps what Jesus meant when he said, “Blessed are the poor, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven?” (Note to Anxious Expositors: that question was rhetorical. I'm not really asking what Jesus meant, okay?)In the tenth chapter of Mark's history, a wealthy young man asks Jesus how to receive life. Mark tells us, “Jesus looked at him and loved him.”Okay, so far so good. Jesus really likes this guy and wants to help him experience the visceral joy he craves. “One thing you lack,” Jesus said. “Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and come, follow me.”Mark reports the young man walked away sad. Removing the glove of wealth was, for him, a price too high to pay for joy.Please note that neither Mark nor I are insinuating that it was the young man's moral duty to liquidate his holdings. Jesus was merely pointing out the high emotional cost of wearing the glove of wealth.What's my point? Only this: excitement and reward exist only outside your comfort zone. You'll experience neither of them until you make yourself do something you really don't want to do.So what is it that scares the hell out of you?Roy H. Williams

We Baby Boomers had beautiful dreams back in the '60s and '70s, but we didn't do much about them. It was enough back in those days just to “Visualize World Peace” and sing wistfully about a brighter tomorrow. Remember John Lennon's song, Imagine?Imagine no possessions.I wonder if you can.No need for greed or hunger,A brotherhood of man.Imagine all the peopleSharing all the world…You may say I'm a dreamer,but I'm not the only one,I hope some day you'll join us,And the world will live as one.But dreaming didn't change the world. We don't all live in a yellow submarine.Those who have heard me explain Society's 40-year Pendulum will recall my conviction that we're in the third year of a new generational cycle that will be remembered for its small-but-effective actions rather than its grand-but-impotent dreams. This new worldview is clearly communicated in the recent movie, Batman Begins, when Bruce Wayne's childhood friend says to him, “It's not who you are inside, but what you do that defines you.”Two weeks ago I made my famous Pendulum presentation to the good folks of Procter and Gamble at their world headquarters in Cincinnati. They loved it; said it explained a lot of weird phenomena they're seeing. Last week I presented it to the senior execs of Clear Channel Communications. They, too, were deeply moved. I'll be doing it one more time on October 15 at the Wizard Academy Reunion and Open House in Austin. Are you coming?Remember what I'm about to tell you: 2006 and 2007 will be years in which the world of advertising changes in tumultuous ways. You can ride these waves of change to the far horizon or you can attempt to tread water, stay where you are, and fight the undertow. I'll be talking about these coming changes on October 15 as well.Free the Beagle.Roy H. Williams

It was a term once used to describe exceptional jazz musicians. African-Americans spelled it “hepcat,” while their white counterparts heard “cat” and assumed “hep” to be a modifier. Hence, “hep cat.”In 1942 Bob Clampett created the first color Looney Tunes cartoon, The Hep Cat, featuring an unnamed feline that would later develop a lisp and become known as Sylvester, (derived from silvestris, the scientific name for the cat species.) Soon, people were being referred to as all kinds of cats, as in cool cat, crazy cat, and “hep” became “hip.”And it all came from the African Wolof word “hipikat,” meaning, “someone finely attuned to his/her environment.” Makes sense, right? An inspired improv from a blower in sync with his fellow jazz musicians would trigger the rejoinder “hipikat” from a bystander familiar with the African word. Anglos heard “hep cat” and a new, misheard word was born.Language is an interesting thing. If you enjoyed that brief summary of “hep cat,” then you're definitely my brand of crazy. I enjoyed it, too. Arooo! Aroo-Arooooo!New subject: Winning a RaceNothing changes when you win a footrace. But the person who wins the hearts of men and women can wonderfully change the future. Do you have the skill to win the eye, the ear, the doubting heart? Can you win the human race?Wizard Academy is a school of the communication arts. The majority of our students come to us to learn how to create ads that will make them money, make presentations that will make them money, or win promotions at work that will make them money. The footrace of business holds a magnetic attraction; it never ceases to draw a crowd, easily winning the mind and wallet. Please don't think I'm disparaging it.But the heart, the heart, remains in the hands of the arts. Journalists and novelists and screenwriters and musicians, painters and poets, playwrights and performers, sculptors and singers, architects and photographers shape our ever-changing mood and guide us toward the future. Artists such as these are attending Wizard Academy in increasing numbers since the methods and principles we teach are just as easily applied to the arts as they are to business.Alumni interested in furthering their knowledge of the heart-arts will be delighted to know that discussions are continuing with acad-grad David Freeman to bring his paradigm-expanding Visual Emotioneering course to Wizard Academy. David is currently the object of an epic tug-of-war, with Hollywood pulling him into movies and Japan pulling him into video games. Both are willing to pay whatever it takes, but David really wants to hang with his homies at the Academy. Stay tuned.Another Acad-grad Writes a Big Book: Bag the Elephant(subtitled, How to Win and Keep BIG Customers.)Steve Kaplan is the nicest guy you'll ever meet, the boy every mom wishes her daughter would bring home for dinner. He could easily have been a regular on Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood.So did Steve became rich as a salesman because he was nice, or in spite of it? In his new book, Steve tells you exactly how he bagged the elephants, and how you can, too. I strongly suggest you pick up a copy at your local bookstore, or order one at amazon.com, (discounted there to just $13.57 in hardback.) Grab it now, before the first printing is all sold out and a waiting list is formed. And keep your eye on the bestseller lists. Wizard Academy grads are on the move.Join us, and become...

Media fragmentation and the evolution of social values are forcing advertisers to spend more and more money to reach fewer and fewer people. Two weeks ago I mentioned the possibility of using non-traditional media (NTM) as a supplement to your advertising. One of the most effective forms of NTM today is Corporate Art.Think of it as advertising, but of a permanent sort.What are the landmarks in your town?The faces on Mt. Rushmore were funded by the state of South Dakota to bring tourism and money to the state. It worked.That famous hillside HOLLYWOOD sign was erected to sell lots in a 1920's Los Angeles subdivision. It worked.America's most precious paintings of the romantic West were originally commissioned by railroads to be published in magazine ads and on calendars in an effort to stimulate travel by rail. It worked. Taos and Sedona and Santa Fe are thriving today because of the romantic glow of those ads.In fact, many of our most important cultural icons began as corporate art: Cinderella's Castle at Disney World. The Chrysler Building in New York. Rockefeller Center. Times Square. Carnegie Hall. Each of these is architectural, corporate art.Standing 76 feet tall, Tulsa's kitschy corporate art is the Golden Driller, a mammoth oilman with his hand atop a drilling rig, a gift to the city of Tulsa from Mid-Continent Supply Company in 1953. Having grown up there, I can tell you that no other icon is as deeply associated with the town. The Golden Driller's image is everywhere.According to Wizard of Ads partner Sonja Howle, Corporate Art:1. Communicates (A) your brand essence. (B) the core values of your company.2. Stimulates employee pride.3. Can be used repeatedly (A) to cut costs in ad production, (B) on calendars, invitations, thank-you cards, etc.4. Triggers community recognition, opens a door for press coverage.5. Offers tax benefits.6. Appreciates as a corporate asset.7. Establishes an ongoing legacy.Does your company have something to say to the world that might be expressed in art?We'll talk a little more about Corporate Art as a Tool of Marketing – as well as several other iterations of NTM – at the upcoming Academy Reunion and Open House on Oct. 15.See you there.Roy H. Williams

I am, for the moment, alive and well as an ad writer. But I feel I'm being stalked by iPods, cell phones, instant messaging, and increasingly fragmented media choices. And they're all gunning for my life.Over-communication rides rampant across the mindscape of America, putting greater-than-ever pressure on ad writers to create ads that produce results.Today I will teach you how to write such ads.The opening line is the key to impact. So open big. I'm not talking about hype; “Save up to 75 percent off this week only at blah, blah blah.” I'm talking about a statement that is fundamentally more interesting than what had previously occupied your customer's mind.Wasn't your attention piqued by the opening line, “I Did Not Die Today?” Magnetism is why I chose it. Frankly, I had no idea how I was going to bridge from that opening line into the subject matter at hand. But it can always be done.Be bold and have confidence; a bridge can be built from any concept to any other concept.Here's a glimpse of an advanced technique I call Chaotic Ad Writing:1. Don't consider your subject matter before deciding how to introduce it.2. Never open with “ad-speak.” especially one of those insultingly obvious questions directed at the customer, such as, “Are you interested in saving money?” These questions are so overused they've deteriorated into horrible clichés. Provocative rhetorical questions are okay however, such as “Whatever happened to Gerald Ford?”3. Think of a magnetic opening statement from way beyond the fence in left field; something certain to captivate.4. Figure out how to bridge from that opener into your subject matter.5. The opening line will surprise Broca's Area of the brain and gain you entrance to the central executive of working memory, conscious awareness, focused attention. The central executive will then decide whether the thought has relevance to the listener. This is what your bridge must supply.6. Write a bridge that justifies your magnetic opening line. If you fall short here, your opener will be perceived as hype. Game over.7. Insert your subject matter into the seam created by your opening line and bridge.8. Close by looping back to your opening line.It's really not that hard.Hey, that's another good opener: “It's really not that hard.” You could easily bridge from that opening line into a powerful ad for any product or service.Here are some other openers for you to try:“I've heard your heart stops when you sneeze.”“I like the TV commercials with the Keebler elves.”“Plutonium is the rarest of all substances.”Here's what I've done so far:1. I opened with “I Did Not Die Today,” having absolutely no idea how I would bridge from that line into the subject matter of this memo.2. I created a bridge to justify my opening line: “I am, for the moment, alive and well as an ad writer. But I feel I'm being stalked by iPods, cell phones, instant messaging and increasingly fragmented media choices. And they're all gunning for my life.”3. I gave you details to satisfy the central executive's demand for relevance: “Over-communication rides rampant across the mindscape of America, putting greater-than-ever pressure on ad writers to create ads that produce results for the customer. Today I will teach you how to write such ads.”4. I inserted my subject matter into the seam created by my opening line and bridge; I gave you a new writing technique.5. Now it's time to close by...

Do you remember the Seinfeld episode where Jerry, George and Elaine are waiting for a table in a Chinese restaurant? The plot revolves around the fact that George is desperate to make a phone call but the other guy won't get off the pay phone. That was 1991. The fact that somebody might have a phone in their pocket was unthinkable.How about the Bubble Boy episode where Jerry and Elaine's car gets separated from George and Susan's car on the highway? Again the plot revolves around the fact that there's no possible way for them to reach each other. That was 1993.Not many years ago I bought a new Mercedes with a factory telephone mounted in the console. The handset was corded like a standard desk phone. No one thought it looked ridiculous. That car was a 1999 model.180 million Americans now carry cell phones in their purses or pockets and many of these are able to receive full-motion video. Newspaper, radio and television are no longer the new kids on the block. Even Ted Turner's cable and Japan's VHS tapes – once the bold new voices of a brave tomorrow – have become weary, bleary and stale.Like it or not, we're entering an age of non-traditional media.As I warned you 14 months ago, media is losing its mass. Each moment we're online is a moment we're not reading the newspaper or watching TV. Each minute we spend listening to a CD or an iPod is a minute we're not listening to the radio. None of these technologies will deal a deathblow to traditional mass media, but only a fool would contend they're not collectively shrinking it.Please hear me right: Mass media isn't going to go away or “quit working.” It's merely going to become less effective than it has been in the past. This is why the 41 worldwide Wizard of Ads partners are aggressively investigating NTM, or “non-traditional media,” including product placement in video games and news shows, localized ads on satellite radio, hyperlinks from blogs, streaming video-on-demand to cell phones, and other new voices in the information avalanche.Six years ago, the Monday Memo you're reading right now was distributed only by FAX. Email wasn't really viable as a replacement. Six. Short. Years.You and I are surrounded by glittering new technologies. Our attitudes about advertising are evolving as well. In short, we're no longer entirely a “me” generation. Our kids are teaching us to become an interconnected “we,” saying, “Your advertising may fool one of us, but that one will tell the rest of us.”The most powerful of today's non-traditional media are also the most overlooked:1: Word of Mouth. It can be bought. But do you know how?2: Your Sales Staff. Are they winning converts, or merely making sales?3: Your Website. Would you like to see it finally start working?A few weeks ago I told you to set aside October 15 to attend the Wizard Academy reunion and open house and promised that details would be announced “in a few weeks.”Here are those promised details.I'll be making virgin presentations on 3 new topics:1. Direct Marketing: the equal-but-opposite corollary to Branding.2. Non-Traditional Media: what's coming, what's already here, and how to use it NOW.3. Word of Mouth: How to plan it and buy it like any other media.Space limitations at the new campus dictate that we accept...

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, “Attention K-Mart shoppers,” and then tells you know how lucky you are to be in the store right now. They're about to offer an unadvertised special. Just follow the flashing blue light.Watching those poor people follow that light is profoundly sad to me. It's the reason I quit shopping at K-Mart.Our world is full of flashing blue lights that cause us to lose our focus and forget the reason we're here. Is there a blue light in your life right now?Blue lights often arrive as an adversary that begs to be defeated.No, I'm not talking about the war in Iraq. I'm talking about you and the distractions that cause you to forget your real purpose.Have you allowed the merely urgent to replace the truly important?I've made this memo short to help you justify taking a few minutes from your crazy schedule to just sit and think about what life is really all about.Do it now. For yourself, and the people you love.The world will wait.Roy H. Williams

Okay, let's be clear about this: I'm proud of myself today. So proud, in fact, that you might want to skip reading this memo because all I'm going to do is strut. It could become sickening. Seriously.Frankly, I can't believe you're still reading after a warning like that.First it was Dr. Burkhardt Maess of the Max Planck Institute for Cognitive Neuroscience who proved my longstanding assertion that Broca's area of the brain anticipates the predictable. (This is important to you and me because Predictability is the killer of attention. If we want to gain and hold human attention, we must know how to stimulate Broca.)Now neurologist Friedemann Pulvermuller of the Medical Research Council in Cambridge has shocked the scientific community by announcing that Wernicke's area and Broca's area gather sensory data from other brain areas and then compile it into complex mental images. According to the article, “These results challenge the theory that isolated, language-specific brain structures discern word meanings. Instead, they propose word understanding hinges on activation of interconnected brain areas that pull together knowledge about that particular word and its associated actions and sensations.”Anyone who has attended one of my public seminars since 1996 has heard me explain this whole “pulling sensory data from associated areas” process in detail. I wrote about it in a series of Monday Morning Memos in 2001 and 2002 and then finally laid the matter to rest with the April, 2003 publication of the audiobook with transcript, Thought Particles: Binary Code of the Mind. Its description says, “This limited-edition insight contains one audio CD and one illustration CD unveiling the Wizard's theories on how thoughts are assembled in the mind from stored sensory associations.”Why does any of this matter? Because the purpose of Wizard Academy is to forward the expansion of the communication arts.Our goal is to teach you how to more effectively change:1. what people think, and2. how they feel.To do this, we must study how thoughts and feelings are gathered, stored, processed, and retrieved from memory.Last week I wrote, “Wizard Academy is a school of the communication arts. We study all the languages of the mind, including shape, color, position, ratio, pitch, key, tempo, contour, musical interval, rhythm and architecture. But words have been the highest form of communication since Genesis chapter one, when God spoke a universe into existence and then created us in his image.”But that is not to say that words are the only language of the mind. Wizard Academy is in the process of expanding its curricula to include investigations into the languages of:1. music2. color3. shapes and symbols4. ritual (as the language of a sports or business tribe)5. phonemes6. schema and worldview (as boundaries to understanding)7. meter8. mathematics (as a language of business, with emphasis on the ratios mentioned on pages 144-145 of Secret Formulas of the Wizard of Ads.If you're an academy grad and would like to be considered as a possible instructor for one of these or another new curricula, please let [email protected] know of your field of interest and your current depth of research into it.Now if you'll excuse me, I've got to march around the room and sing

One of these days I'm going to calculate the odds of pulling away from a drive-thru window and actually finding what was ordered in the bag.For 3 years I've been calculating the odds of getting extra lemon for your tea when you add the phrase “lots of lemon, please” in America's better restaurants. Currently, this request will get you some small quantity of extra lemon 47.4 percent of the time; usually a single, sad slice alongside the sliver you were going to get anyway.If you really want “lots of lemon,” you must raise the impact quotient of your message; paint a bigger picture in the mind. Smile and say, “I'd like iced tea with so many lemons that they slide off the table onto the floor. I'm talking about this restaurant being knee-deep in lemons when I leave, so many lemons that it takes two men and a little boy to carry them all. Will you do that for me?”Do I get lots of lemon when I say this? Yes. Do I enjoy doing it? No. Do I think it's witty, cute, clever, funny? No.I do it because I want the lemons.What do you want? And how have you been asking for it?Do you typically assume that people are paying attention when you speak? E. M. Cioran said, “If we could see ourselves as others see us, we would vanish on the spot.” I fear he was probably right.The key to being understood is to raise the impact quotient of your message.Have you figured out yet that we're talking about advertising? And sermons? And classroom lectures? And effective web copy? And blockbuster screenplays? And Pulitzer prize winning journalism?The higher the impact quotient of your message, the less repetition is required to enter into declarative memory. The higher the impact quotient, the bigger the scene painted on the visuospatial sketchpad of working memory in the dorsolateral prefrontal association area of the brain.Wizard Academy is a school of the communication arts. We study all the languages of the mind, including shape, color, position, ratio, pitch, key, tempo, contour, musical interval, rhythm and architecture. But words have been the highest form of communication since Genesis chapter one, when God spoke a universe into existence and then created us in his image.Learn to harness the power of words. Can you name anything else that will make as big a difference in your life?Roy H. Williams

Earth's population reached 1 billion persons in 1804, 2 billion in 1927, 3 billion in '59, 4 billion in '74 and 5 billion in late '86. And on October 12th, 1999, Earth's population surpassed 6 billion.The number of passengers on Spaceship Earth has doubled (from 3 billion – 1959, to 6 billion – 1999,) in 40 short years. But we're not discussing population growth today, I'm just opening your eyes to perceptual reality.The cognoscenti of Magical Worlds will remember a brief discussion of perceptual reality at the beginning of class. “Each of you will sit in this room for 3 days and hear the same information presented in precisely the same way. But you'll leave here having had an entirely different experience from the persons on your left and your right. You will connect different dots, have different epiphanies, make different associations. Objective reality will be the same for each of you. But your perceptual realities will be yours alone.”There are 525,948.766 minutes in a year. This means that each minute, the 6 billion of us experience a collective 11,408 years of perceptual reality. And each day we live a collective 16,427,455 years.Given that we lived nearly sixteen and a half million years yesterday, it seems like one of us would've figured out how to end poverty, crime and war, doesn't it? (Personally, I was really busy, so I was counting on you.)Today's illustration is an image of the famous mime, Marcel Marceau, superimposed over a photo of Earth with snapshots of women and men on its surface. To the right is the cover of Paul Finley's awesome 14 Windows guitar CD.You, reader, saw the same image as 30,000 other subscribers, but your perception was yours alone. You may have been confused by the image, amused by it, intrigued by it, or mildly or strongly disturbed by it. Perhaps you even saw a symbolic statement being made. I did not intend one.Perceptual reality is yours alone.Every door of opportunity begins as a window in your mind.Look through that window of imagination and glimpse a world that could be, someday. Keep looking… Be patient… And watch it grow into a door of Opportunity through which you might pass into an entirely different future.Opportunity never knocks. But it hangs thick in the air all around you. You breathe it unthinking, and dissipate it with your sighs.Opportunity never knocks. It appears, flickering, like faulty neon at a nondescript fork in the road.Opportunity never knocks. It whispers, a tickle in your distracted mind.So what are you going to do? Will you sleep, unaware of the miracles that need your assistance, or will you open your eyes, look through that window, and begin doing what only you can do?Roy H. Williams