When a business is struggling financially, cost-cutting looks like a brilliant move.But can you shrink your way to success?From what I’ve seen, it’s easier – and healthier – to increase revenues than it is to cut costs.Cost-cutting comes at a very high cost.When I was 16 years old, General Motors was the bluest of the blue-chip stocks. Alfred Sloan was the Steve Jobs, the Jeff Bezos of GM and he sold 50% of all the cars in America. Chevrolet, Pontiac, Oldsmobile, Buick and Cadillac were easily distinguished from one another and what you drove said a lot about you.In the United States, those 5 GM brands outsold Toyota, Honda, Nissan, Ford, Mercury, Lincoln, Chrysler, Volvo, Volkswagen, Subaru, Mercedes, Dodge, Plymouth, American Motors, Jeep, Rambler, Alfa Romeo, Fiat, Renault, BMW, Audi, Citroën, Opel, Peugeot, Ferrari, Jaguar and Porsche combined.During the years I’ve been old enough to drive, GM has fallen from 50% down to just 17% of sales in the U.S.But don’t blame increased competition. Other than Tesla and Hyundai, every brand of car available in America today was available when I was 16.What happened to GM? Cost-cutting.After a long and successful history of choosing CEOs from its manufacturing and sales divisions – Sloan, Wilson, Curtice, Donner, and Roche – General Motors chose a money manager, Richard Gerstenberg, to become CEO in 1972. Two years later, they replaced him with an accountant, Thomas Murphy.Money-manager Gerstenberg and accountant Murphy said, “Why are we spending all this money to design never-before-seen cars every 2 or 3 years? The cost of re-tooling our factories is astronomical. It would be more cost-effective to simply attach different grilles, headlights and tail lights along with a different interior and let each of our 5 brands sell essentially the same car.”“By the 1980’s, Sloan’s design had faded away. General Motors had not only blurred its brands and divisions, it engaged in badge engineering, offering essentially the same vehicle under several model and brand names.” – Good Strategy/Bad Strategy, p. 221On Oct. 11, 1988, the New York Times reported,“Underscoring the need for a distinct image in the era of look-alike cars has been sales performance. Buick sales dropped to 557,491 last year from about 920,000 in 1984, and Oldsmobile sales fell to 714,394 last year after having topped one million in the preceding three years.”Then, just before the end of 2018, we read,“In a move that will save the company $6 billion by the end of 2020, General Motors announced a restructuring Monday that includes chopping its workforce by 15% and shuttering 5 plants next year.”Some people never learn.Rust in peace, GM.I’ve watched this same movie, over and over, in every category of business in America. But no matter which actor is playing the lead, this movie always ends the same.Are you planning to shrink your way to greater profitability?I suggest you try to increase your sales revenues instead.That’s the only movie that has a happy ending.Roy H. Williams

I know what happens when men retire.I do not know what happens when women retire. Perhaps they are plagued by the same maladjustments, discomforts and discontentment as men, but I doubt it. As Michele Miller points out in her audiobook, The Natural Advantages of Women, females of our species are gifted with different neurological wiring that helps them be less obsessive, more able to adapt. She doesn’t use exactly those words, but that’s my interpretation of what the medical research seems to indicate.But men. I do know men.I’ve spent 40 years watching businessmen step up and out to make way for new leadership stepping up and in.Two Things Happen When Men Retire:Most of us lie to ourselves.“I’m going to play golf.” “I’m going to go fishing.” “I’m going to travel.” But as my friend Don Kuhl pointed out recently, these activities get old fast.Within 12 months, most men return to doing what they have always done.I’ve never seen it fail. A successful man will not be happy in retirement until he finds a way to redirect the superpower that made him successful. Warren Buffet calls this superpower, “your circle of competence.” The problem is that most men don’t know what theirs is.Acquired skills are conscious competence. But special talents, instinctive superpowers, flicker outward like invisible tongues of fire from your unconscious competence.Have you ever received instruction from a talented person? They speak poetry and think it is science.Rare is the talented person who is aware of – and can consciously explain – their unconscious competence. But I’ve known a few talented men who were aware, and who could explain it. And each of them was able to move elegantly from one season of their life to another.My father-in-law, Paul Compton, understood all things mechanical. If Paul had kept a sketchbook of his inventions it would have rivaled the sketchbooks of Leonardo da Vinci. It’s little wonder that Paul quickly rose from working in a stone quarry to become an expert repairman of jet engines for American Airlines.When Paul retired, he bought expensive machines at auction that were beyond repair and then repaired them. He made a profit when he sold them, of course, but he wasn’t doing it for the money. It was just a new and different way for him to aim his superpower.Sean Jones is a good friend, a former client, and a genius who consciously understands his unconscious competence. Sean’s superpower is that he can look at a business, any business, and see precisely how to systematize 80% of the recurrent activities so that he might personalize and humanize the remaining 20%. Sean made his first fortune when he bought a small chain of jewelry stores and then used his superpower to skyrocket that company to unprecedented success. He sold that company for the kind of money people fantasize about when they buy lottery tickets, but Sean never-for-a-moment thought of retiring.He is now buying other companies in completely unrelated categories and working his special brand of magic on them, as well.Paul Compton and Sean Jones didn’t retire, they merely redirected their superpowers in new and different ways.Last week I had a 6-hour lunch with a close friend who is about to sell his company. He told me of 3 different things he was planning to do during his “retirement” and then asked me whether I thought he was crazy, because all 3 ideas – on the surface at least – were crazy.I asked my friend if he knew what it was that had made him so successful in his chosen field. He knew. I knew, too. But now that it was on the table, I was able to...

“It was dark inside the wolf,” is how Margaret Atwood believes the story might have opened.Emily Dickinson would agree. “Tell all the truth, but tell it slant,” was her advice to those of us who want our emails to be opened, our stories to be read, and our voices to be heard.If you want your subject line, headline, or opening line to win attention, “Tell all the truth, but tell it slant.” Approach your subject from an interesting angle.The head-on approach is for journalists without wit.“Elderly Woman Eaten by Wolf but Survives.”You are not a journalist without wit.Are you captivated by a photograph or story?Let me give you the reasons why:1. It represents an idea bigger than itself.2. Part of you feels like you are there.3. Your imagination is called upon to fill in what was purposely left out.4. The subject is approached from an interesting angle.Do you want to secure the engagement of your reader, listener, customer?1. Make your words about something bigger than you and your product.2. Put your reader, listener, customer into your story, your speech, your ad.This is easily done using second person perspective and present-tense verbs. “You are walking through a forest when you hear the shadows of the trees sucking the light from the air around you and notice a four-legged shadow making its way slowly through the trees, coming toward you…”3. Did you see what we left out?We did not say it was a “dark” forest, but you saw darkness anyway. We did not say “ominous” but you felt it when the shadows came alive and began sucking the sunlight from the air around you. We did not say “wolf,” but you saw one in the four-legged shadow making its way slowly through the trees.*4. Questions flood the mind when a story is entered from an interesting angle.Why are we in the woods? Where are we going? What will we do when we get there?Whether spoken or unspoken, questions are the unmistakable sign of engagement.No questions, no engagement.No engagement means no sale, no income, no rave reviews.But you will have all these things and in great supply because you subscribe to the Monday Morning Memo and you understand, and believe, what I have told you.But I will not tell you about our monthly webcast unless you really want to know.Confession: I write ads to attract successful people; perceptive, intelligent readers.I do not write for dull-witted people. My avoidance of false claims, fear-mongering, hyperbole and exclamation points is a form of targeting-through-ad-copy that is more reliable than any customer list money can buy.The fact that you have read these musings all the way to the end makes me think highly of you.Very highly, indeed.Yours,Roy H. Williams

1. You Cannot Measure What Has Not Happened.When you ask a person about an experience that exists only in their imagination, they will give you imaginary answers.You can measure only what has already happened.In other words, you cannot measure what “would” or “would not” work. You can only measure what “did” and “did not” work.2. The Question Influences the Answer.“A question, even of the simplest kind, is not, and never can be unbiased. The structure of any question is as devoid of neutrality as its content. The form of a question may ease our way or pose obstacles. Or, when even slightly altered, it may generate antithetical answers, as in the case of the two priests who, being unsure if it was permissible to smoke and pray at the same time, wrote to the Pope for a definitive answer. One priest asked, “Is it permissible to smoke while praying?” and was told it is not, since prayer should be the focus of one’s whole attention. The other priest asked if it is permissible to pray while smoking and was told that it is, since it is always permissible to pray.”– Dr. Neil Postman, New York University3. Focus Groups are Plagued by a Basic Flaw of Human Psychology.When a person is asked to sit in judgment, they go to a different place in their mind. They react as a critic rather than as a customer.Asking a stranger to be a judge does not qualify them to be one.On page 8 of today’s rabbit hole, Indy Beagle will entertain you with video highlights of two hidden-camera focus groups as they evaluate a potential TV ad for Apple. It is tragicomic to watch these honest, well-intentioned focus group participants reveal their prejudices and inexperience. In the end, both focus groups conclude the proposed TV ad is badly conceived and recommend to Apple that it not be produced, never realizing they were evaluating the script and storyboard visuals for the most successful TV ad in history.4. What People Believe (and Say) They Will Do is Different From What They Will Actually Do.In the words of Harvard Business School professor Gerald Zaltman, “The correlation between stated intent and actual behavior is usually low and negative.” Zaltman goes on to describe how Hollywood films and TV pilots—virtually all of which are screened by focus groups—routinely fail in the marketplace, and 80 percent of new products or services fail within 6 months when they’ve been vetted through focus groups.Most of the thoughts and feelings that influence consumers’ behavior occur in the unconscious mind. “Unconscious thoughts are the most accurate predictors of what people will actually do,” Zaltman said in an interview. People think they will make an objective, transactional decision, when in reality they will make a subjective, relational one.We believe we will decide with our mind. But in the moment of truth, we decide with our heart.5. Data can Show You the Outcome of Your Past Decisions, But it Cannot Tell You How to Do What Has Never Been Done.Do not look to survey recommendations when you seek innovation.Innovation is a product of intuition.Was stereo invented because customers said, “Instead of the music coming out of just one speaker, why not have part of it come from a speaker on the left and the rest of it come from a speaker on the right?”Customers did not ask for stereo but after they were exposed to it, they couldn’t live without it.Did Steve Jobs develop the iPhone because customers told him they wanted cameras in their cell phones?Was inventory-on-demand perfected as a result of customers saying, “I think it would be better if you waited to create the product until after I order it?”Did Tony Hsieh invest in Zappos.com because people told him they would like to...

I ate too much and it made me heavy and slow.Using too many words is like eating too much.It makes communication heavy and slow.Short sentences hit harder.Nouns and verbs are fists that deliver punches.Adjectives and adverbs are gloves that soften the blows.Unless they are unexpected.A brass-knuckled uppercut is an unexpected adjective that modifies a noun you didn’t see coming.“Your soup tastes like old socks that have been marinated in diesel, sprinkled with urine, and baked for three days covered in a sack that’s been used to wipe a donkey’s backside.”– Richard Poole, Death in Paradise, Season 1, episode 6Soup is the subject.Tastes, marinated, sprinkled, baked, covered, used, and wipe are the verbs.Socks, diesel, urine, days, sack, and backside are the nouns.Unexpected words unleash vivid images when they splash onto your mind.We’re driving through Mike’s Express Car Wash in Indianapolis.A 4,000,000 BTU heater ensures the water never drops below 180 degrees. Hot water cleans better than cold water because it delivers more stored energy.Soap unleashes hungry electrons that dissolve the road film clinging to our car.Pressure pumps give the water kinetic energy as it is fired from the nozzles of the guns.Brushes and mitters deliver mechanical vibration, a fourth kind of energy.The soft-water rinse is chased by a tornado that rocks our car and leaves never a trace of moisture.Emerging from the tunnel, we look like we’re driving off the showroom floor.A well-written paragraph unleashes bright colors like a car wash in Indianapolis.Similes and metaphors allow us to use the known and familiar to reveal the unknown and unfamiliar, like a father telling his son about the birds and the bees.Paired opposites give us the power to shine light in dark places and bring wellsprings of water to thirsty deserts.Rhythms of stressed and unstressed syllables make our words memorable. Meter is music. Meter is magic.Alliteration gives us the ability to accelerate all 43 phonemes, like many mumbling mice making midnight music in the moonlight. Mighty nice.The names of shapes and colors and familiar things allow us to project images onto the movie screen of the mind.Words give us the power to speak worlds into existence.What future will you set in motion today?Roy H. Williams

There is, to my knowledge, only one way to profitably put the power of the internet to work for you.It’s simple; just give people what they want.But first you have to know what they want.Let me help you with that.(1.) They want answers, and(2.) they want entertainment.But the answers they seek aren’t usually about your product or service. The answers they seek are solutions to their problems.You must speak directly to the felt need.If you would win the attention of the people, give them the answers they seek.If you would win the attention of the giants, learn to speak their language.Do you understand Natural Language Processing, that algorithmic logic in the binary minds of Google and YouTube and all the other giants in the land? Learn to speak this language and the internet will become your trumpet.We’re always ready to be distracted by something delightful.Entertain us and we’ll give you our attention. Make us feel good and we’ll consider you our friend. Stand for something we believe in and we’ll give you our support. Make a difference and we’ll tell our friends about you. Give us happy thoughts to think and we’ll allow you to guide our minds.Win the heart and the mind will follow. The mind can easily find logic to justify what the heart has already decided.Entertainment is the only currency with which you can purchase the time and attention of a too-busy public. This is the essence of customer bonding.If you talk about yourself and why your solution is better than your competitors’, the only people who notice will be your competitors. But if you deliver a thrill of pleasure, the public will gather at your feet.Two young men sat through all the classes at Wizard Academy and learned how to use the life-changing tools of answers and entertainment.And with those tools firmly in hand, they wandered into the untamed wilderness of the internet exactly two years ago. They had no money to spend. None. But they had knowledge and time and energy.They chose to use their tools on YouTube. They could just as easily have chosen one of the other social media platforms, or they could simply have created a blog.The power is not in the platform. The power is in the answers and in the entertainment.They decided not to allow advertisers to attach ads to their daily YouTube show. This means they would receive no revenue from advertising, but it also means no false metrics created by click farms.Two years later, their worldwide audience is spending an average of 457,000 minutes a day watching their show. That’s more “viewing minutes” per day than are contained in 317 twenty-four-hour days. In a couple more months they’ll be receiving more than one year’s viewing time each day.Needless to say, they have become extremely influential in their chosen field and money is raining down on them like confetti in a ticker-tape parade.And they’ve not yet spent a penny on advertising.Roy H. Williams

When someone says, “Figures don’t lie,” know this: Figures lie, and liars figure.Never trust a weasel with a calculator.Do you remember the mortgage meltdown of 2008 and The Big Short, the movie that was made about it? There is a scene in that movie where investors Mark Baum and Vinnie Daniel go to visit Georgia Hale, an employee of the ratings agency Standard and Poor’s:Georgia Hale: So, alrighty, FrontPoint Partners, how can Standard and Poor’s help you?Vinnie Daniel: Well, we don’t understand why the ratings agencies haven’t downgraded subprime bonds since the underlying loans are clearly deteriorating.Georgia Hale: Well, the delinquency rates do have people worried but they’re actually within our models.Vinnie Daniel: Says you.Mark Baum: So you’re convinced the underlying mortgages in these bonds are solid loans?Georgia Hale: That is our opinion, yes.Vinnie Daniel: Did you check the tape? Have you looked at the loan level data?Georgia Hale: What do you think we do here all day?Vinnie Daniel: They’re giving these loans to anybody with a credit score and a pulse.Georgia Hale: Excuse me, sir. What do you think we do here all day?Vinnie Daniel: We’re not sure. That’s why we’re here.Mark Baum: Here’s what I don’t understand,Georgia Hale: We check, we recheck, we check again…Mark Baum: If these mortgage bonds are so stable, if they are so solid,Georgia Hale: Perhaps you should check your friend.Mark Baum: have you ever refused to rateGeorgia Hale: We stand behind them.Vinnie Daniel: That’s delusional.Georgia Hale: We stand behind them.Mark Baum: Georgia, have you ever refused to rate any of these bonds – upper tranche – as Triple-A? Can we see the paperwork on those deals?Georgia Hale: Oh, I’m under no obligation to share that information with you, whoever you might be.Mark Baum: Just answer the question, Georgia. Can you name one time in the past year where you checked the tape and you didn’t give the banks the Triple-A percentage they wanted?Georgia Hale: If we don’t give them the ratings, they’ll go to Moody’s, right down the block. If we don’t work with them, they’ll go to our competitors. It’s not our fault. It’s simply the way the world works.Vinnie Daniel: (after a dumbfounded pause) Holy shit.Georgia Hale: Yes, now you see. And I never said that.It seems to me the principal difference between the unregulated world of subprime loans and the unregulated world of online marketing is that there is no way to “short” the world of online ad fraud. There is no way to make a profit by exposing and ending it.In a widely-circulated news column published the day after Christmas, 2018, reporter Max Reid asked and answered an important question:“How much of the internet is fake? Studies generally suggest that, year after year, less than 60 percent of web traffic is...

The average person is afraid of criticism.But the person who has no fear of criticism is more likely to succeed. This lack of fear is what keeps them from being average.The average business owner is afraid their ads will be criticized.Do you want to kill a great ad? Show it to the people you trust.In the words of my partner Mick Torbay,“You need to understand something: the committee is not evil. The committee doesn’t want you to fail. The committee has nothing but good intentions. But the committee can’t innovate. More than anything, the committee wants to look good to the rest of the committee. The committee is afraid of looking stupid… The committee can only spot problems, downsides, possible pitfalls… So don’t be surprised that when you present a really, really great idea to a committee, the only thing you’re gonna get is a reason why that idea won’t work, one reason for every member of the committee. The committee will always pull you to the center. The committee will help you avoid risk, but risk and reward are two sides of the same coin. If you avoid risk, then huge success is now out of the question. Are you okay with that?”Most ads aren’t written to persuade; they’re written not to offend.But even a weak ad will cause your name to be the first that springs into the public mind if you give it enough repetition. This assumes, of course, that your competitors have equally bland ads.And frankly, that’s a pretty safe bet.But repetition costs money.Do you want to differentiate yourself with memorable, attention-getting ads that will accelerate your repetition by unleashing the persuasive powers of wit, humor, identity, and audacity?The first step is to find your corporate mission statement, take it outside into the sunlight, lift it high up into the sky, then lay it down on the sidewalk and set it on fire. When it is finished burning, sweep the powdery ashes into the grass. Paper ash is an excellent source of lime and potassium. This will raise the pH and help neutralize the acid in your soil.You have now put your mission statement to the best possible use.Just out of curiosity, why did you think you needed to write down all those generic things you believe in? Those things you included – the things you stand for – rarely differentiate you since most of us include, believe in, and stand for the same things: Individuality, Informality, Opportunity, Competition, Efficiency, Progress, and Helping Others. It is what you exclude, or stand against, that defines you. To gain attention and win a following, you must stand against the omission of one of these seven things:Individuality: individual initiative, individual expression, independence and privacyInformality: equality, directness, and an open societyOpportunity: ability to change yourself, your business, your country, and your worldCompetition: opportunity to win recognition, status, and material rewardsEfficiency: reduce wasted time, effort, and resourcesProgress: social, economic, and physical mobilityHelping Others: because we’re all in this togetherYou may have used different words, but those are the ideas contained in every mission statement, the ultimate expression of committee-think.You don’t become famous by championing everything.You become famous by championing one thing.The client who grew the most in 2018 stands against inefficiency. His company eliminates stress and frustration by responding instantly when customers call and then doing the job...

Ad writers hear it every day, whistling toward them like a bullet: “We need more traffic, that’s what we need; more sales opportunities!”I spent the early part of my radio career stepping up to the plate and knocking that fastball out of the park. If your back was against the wall, I was the man to call.I was like Coca-Cola, baby, I was everywhere.It was the early 1980s.My employer required me to wear a tie, so I hung one around my neck like a scarf. And to underscore my scruffy renegade look, I refused to tie my shoes. Everywhere I went, people would tell me, “Your shoes are untied,” and I would reply with a smile, “Yeah, I know.”I looked like a young drug dealer, and in a way, I was.I sold instant gratification advertising. “You want a crowd? Crowds cost money. How big a crowd do you want?”It’s actually pretty easy to attract a worked-up crowd. Do you want to know how to do it?These are the ingredients you must have at handTo Make Big Things Happen Fast:1. Urgency – There has to be a shortage of time or a shortage of quantity. The rule to remember is this: “No shortage, no urgency.” The best shortage is to have a limited number of a highly desirable item at a remarkable price. This is the time-tested formula that causes people to camp out on the sidewalk in front of Wal-Mart before the doors open the day after Thanksgiving.If the number of 82-inch TVs available for $999 is too few, people will say, “I don’t have a chance,” and stay home. But if the number is too many, no one will get excited because “there’s enough to go around.” So you definitely need to name a number. “While supplies last,” is a line that only a beginner would write. The customer hears that and thinks, “They only had one of those and they sold it before this radio ad ever hit the airwaves.” Result: no response.2. Credible Desperation – If you scream, “400 Toyotas MUST be sold this weekend! No reasonable offer refused!” you’ve got no credibility. The listener thinks, “WHY do you have to sell 400? What happens if you don’t? And what you consider to be ‘a reasonable offer’ is probably a lot more money than what I consider to be a reasonable offer, so I’m going to pass. I’ve got better things to do this weekend than haggle with a jackass car dealer.”Desperation loses credibility as time passes. That’s why these ads work less and less well the longer you use them.“Lost our lease, everything must go,” is another line that only a beginner would write. Specifics are more believable than generalities.Do you want to make your desperation credible? Do you want stuff to fly out the door? Say, “We’ve been thrown out! Our landlord rented our space to someone else and a dump truck will be here at 8AM on Monday, January 7th to haul away everything we leave behind….”3. Specifics – “…so we’re liquidating the entire inventory, every item in every department. We’re selling the showcases, the light fixtures and the cash registers. And if you can figure out how to get the wallpaper off the wall, we’ll sell you that, too. Call your friend with a pickup truck because you’re going to leave here with an ecstatic truckload of once-in-a-lifetime bargains. An $800 kayak is $179. Perfume that sells for $200 a bottle is yours for just $20. Diamond pendants worth a thousand dollars are just $129. A dozen doughnuts, made fresh while you wait, are just ONE DOLLAR and you can eat them while you’re shopping. So cancel what you had planned and get here as quick as you can.”4. Repetition – Nothing says “urgent news” like an ad that runs twice an hour for 72 hours. If a radio station will let you air only one ad an hour, then make sure it’s a 60-second

Few people remember it because it was too long ago.April, 1962– America tries to overthrow Fidel Castro of Cuba in the “Bay of Pigs” invasion.July, 1962– Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev reaches a secret agreement with Fidel Castro to place Soviet nuclear missiles in Cuba to deter any future invasion attempt.October 14, 1962– An American U–2 spy plane takes photos of Soviet nuclear missiles being assembled in Cuba, just 90 miles off the coast of Florida.October 22, 1962– American President John F. Kennedy appears on national television announcing a military quarantine of Cuba, warning the American people of the potential global consequences. “It shall be the policy of this nation to regard any nuclear missile launched from Cuba against any nation in the Western Hemisphere as an attack by the Soviet Union on the United States, requiring a full retaliatory response upon the Soviet Union.”October 24, 1962– Nikita Khrushchev says the U.S. blockade is an “act of aggression” and Soviet ships bound for Cuba are ordered to proceed.U.S. forces are placed at DEFCON 2, meaning war involving the Strategic Air Command is imminent.October 26, 1962 – John F. Kennedy learns that work on the missile bases is proceeding without interruption and that an American U-2 spy plane has been shot down over Cuba, and its pilot, Major Rudolf Anderson, is dead.The world totters on the brink of nuclear war between superpowers.Americans everywhere stop in their tracks and look to the skies.And then two of them wrote a song:Said the night wind to the little lamb,“Do you see what I see,Way up in the sky, little lamb?Do you see what I see?A star, a star, dancing in the nightWith a tail as big as a kite.With a tail as big as a kite.”This was the image of a nuclear missile followed by its fiery tail in the night. But it was also the image of a star poised above Bethlehem, shining its light on a baby wrapped in swaddling clothes.Said the little lamb to the shepherd boy,“Do you hear what I hearRinging through the sky, shepherd boy?Do you hear what I hear?A song, a song, high above the treesWith a voice as big as the sea.With a voice as big as the sea.”Said the shepherd boy to the mighty king,“Do you know what I knowIn your palace warm, mighty king?Do you know what I know?A Child, a Child shivers in the cold,Let us bring Him silver and gold.Let us bring Him silver and gold.”Said the king to the people everywhere,“Listen to what I say,Pray for peace, people everywhere!Listen to what I say,The Child, the Child, sleeping in the night,He will bring us goodness and light.He will bring us goodness and light.”During the darkest hours of the Cuban Missile Crisis, a French veteran of WWII living in New York, Noël Regney, wrote the lyrics and his Brooklyn wife, Gloria, wrote the music.And for as long as they lived, neither of them could sing it all the way through without crying.Merry Christmas,Roy and Pennie Williams

Throughout my career as an ad writer, I’ve noticed that the easiest companies to skyrocket are those with a healthy and happy corporate culture.You know it’s a great company when everyone wants to get a job there and no one wants to leave.Let’s talk about culture.Definition One:In biology, a culture is a cultivation (usually bacteria, germs, or tissue cells) in an environment of nutrients.Culture: a cultivation in an environment of nutrients.Do you want to create a culture?Step One: EnvironmentStep Two: NutrientsDefinition Two:When we describe a person as “cultured,” we’re saying they are conversant in the arts.In the words of Phil Johnson, “You acquire an education by study, hard work and persistence. But you absorb culture by viewing great art, listening to great music and reading great books.”The arts are nutrients for the heart. To become “cultured” in the arts is to know how to make peoplefeel differently.Definition Three:When our friend Susan Ryan came home after 7 years of doing business in a third-world country, she said, “It’s hard to develop a strategy that will overcome hundreds of years of enculturation. Culture eats strategy for lunch.”A strategy is made of goals, objectives, and activities.A culture is made of values, practices, and behaviors.Princess Pennie says strategy is today’s “do list”and culture is all the yesterdays that made you who you are.Definition Four:The culture of a business is expressed as esprit de corp: the spirit of the group.Culture: a cultivation in an environment of nutrients.Business Culture: a cultivation of practices and behaviors in an environment of values.If you don’t have strong values, you won’t have a strong culture.If you don’t reward and celebrate employee practices and behaviors, you’re just mouthing platitudes and clichés. (Commonly known as mission statements and corporate policies.)Anyone can copy your strategy, but no one can copy your culture.Branding is nothing more than corporate culture made known.Good advertising promises your customer a specific experience.It is then up to your people to deliver that experience.Shout it from the housetops.Roy H. Williams

I’m reading Hemingway’s novel, Death in the Afternoon, and I like it.It is a detailed explanation of bullfighting.Not a story about a bullfighter.Bullfighting.I have no interest in bullfighting. None.The book has no character arc because it has no characters. It has narrative, but no narrative arc. No plot, no moments of crisis, no heroism, no romance.It is essentially an instruction manual.Why do I find myself drawn to this book?Yesterday morning I said to Pennie, “Hemingway is teaching me some things I can’t quite put into words, but as soon as I can figure out how to explain them, I’ll tell you what they are.”She was moving laundry from the washer to the dryer. “Read me a page that you liked.”“Page one hundred and twenty. Hemingway has been explaining how the bulls of Salamanca differ from the bulls of Andalucia when – out of nowhere – he inserts a literary device I’ve never seen in a book.”“What kind of literary device?”“He imagines a reader’s reaction to his book, then, speaking as that reader, he criticizes the author for not doing the thing that made him famous. Then, as the author, he accommodates this imaginary reader by inserting an imaginary conversation with an imaginary woman. It’s the same kind of multi-layered self-talk Robin Williams used to do.”“Read it to me.”But, you say, there is very little conversation in this book. Why isn’t there more dialogue? What we want in a book by this citizen is people talking; that is all he knows how to do and now he doesn’t do it. The fellow is no philosopher, no savant, an incompetent zoologist, he drinks too much and cannot punctuate readily and now he has stopped writing dialogue. Someone ought to put a stop to him. He is bull crazy.Citizen, perhaps you are right. Let us have a little dialogue.What do you ask, Madame? Is there anything you would like to know about the bulls?Yes, sir.What would you like to know? I’ll tell you absolutely anything.It is a difficult thing to ask, sir.Do not let that trouble you; talk to me frankly; as you would to your doctor, or to another woman. Do not be afraid to ask what you would really like to know.Sir, I would like to know about their love life.Madame, you have come to just the man.Pennie smiled and nodded her head. Then she handed me a gang of shirts on hangers and told me to put them in my closet.I hung the shirts on the doorknob of the laundry room and said, “It’s like that time I took Chris with me to Seattle.”“That time he began speaking to an imaginary television audience in that seafood restaurant?”“Yeah. He just put down his fork, stared at a point on the wall across the room and said, ‘Hello there, friends. It’s time, once again, for Workin’ It, with Chris Maddock.’ After a 5-minute opening monologue, he turned and began talking to a guest on his show; an invisible woman seated next to him. Never cracked a smile. Never broke character.”“How did the show end?”“He just picked up his fork and started eating again.”“What year was that?”“1999”“When did Hemingway write the bullfight book?”“1932”As she picked up a stack of folded towels, she said, “When we’re surprised by weird, unexpected twists and turns, it makes the journey more interesting.”I nodded my agreement and lifted the shirts off the doorknob.“Maybe you should do that in a Monday Morning Memo.”“Maybe I will.”Roy H. Williams

1967 – A little boy leaned on his elbows in front of a black-and-white TV in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma, unaware that Walt Disney was dead.How could he be dead? I was watching him on TV.Looking right into my eyes, Walt told me about his purchase of 43 square miles of Central Florida, an area twice the size of the island of Manhattan, and his plan to build there an Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow (EPCOT.)He was standing in a Hollywood film studio in front of a floor-to-ceiling map of his Florida project when he said,“Welcome to a little bit of Florida here in California. This is where the early planning is taking place for our so-called Disney World Project. Now, the purpose of this film is to bring you up to date about some of the plans for Disney World.”A little later, he said,“The sketches and plans you will see today are simply a starting point, our first overall thinking about Disney World. Everything in this room may change time and time again as we move ahead, but the basic philosophy of what we’re planning for Disney World is going to remain very much as it is right now…”That was the part I never forgot: Walt Disney knew his plan would evolve into something different than he imagined.Eighteen years ago Princess Pennie decided to buy some land and build a non-profit school for entrepreneurs, storytellers, and educators. We knew it would have a classroom tower with a library mezzanine and on-campus housing so that students wouldn’t have to sleep in hotel rooms.Everything else was an afterthought.Chapel Dulcinea was chosen by 1,111 brides in 2017, making it the most popular wedding chapel on earth. A free wedding chapel wasn’t part of the original plan, but if you’ve ever walked the campus at Wizard Academy, it’s hard to imagine it not being there.A certification course for the training of whiskey sommeliers (storytellers) wasn’t part of the original plan, either. Nor was The Crowded Barrel whiskey distillery.* And we could never have dreamed that Wizard Academy’s YouTube channel, The Whiskey Vault, would become the #1 whiskey-review channel on earth.We couldn’t have imagined it because streaming, online video did not exist in the year 2000.And now the Rocinante gym.A couple of years ago, Brian Clapp donated state-of-the art gym equipment but it never got used because it was housed in a part of the campus where students never go. The solution? Build a sleek, cantilevered gym covered in glittering silver metal with an 18-foot glass wall looking at Chapel Dulcinea, and put it next to the sidewalk between Spence Manor and Engelbrecht House.And of course we’ll be starting The House of the Lost Boys – your third student mansion – as soon as the gym is complete, probably in about 60 days.But that’s not the big news. No, not by a long shot.In late spring, 2019, the American Small Business Institute will be launching an important new certification course, The Ad Writer’s Masters Class, a one-year online course – 26 modules, followed by 26 essay assignments – followed by a three-day, face-to-face working examination by a board of Master Ad Writers.This is a really big deal.And very expensive. (12k, minus alumni discount)When you finally pass your board exams – and you can try as often as you want – you will be certified and admitted into The Ad Writers Guild, with appropriate pomp and fanfare and physical glitteralia.Because after all, the American Small Business Institute is an extension of that wonderful dreamscape called Wizard Academy.Indy says you should visit him in the rabbit hole. You know how to get in, right?Roy H. WilliamsPS – If you want to be notified when the Ad Writer’s...

Two brothers were locked out of their home, so they climbed onto the roof and entered the house through the chimney. When they crawled out of the fireplace, one of them had soot on his face, the other did not. The clean-faced brother immediately went into the bathroom and washed his face. The brother with soot on his face did not. Why?We are confused by the actions of the brothers until we put ourselves in their shoes and see the world through their eyes.The clean-faced brother looked at the sooty-faced brother and assumed they were both in the same condition, so he went and washed his face. Likewise, the sooty-faced brother did not know he needed to wash, because he was looking at the brother whose face was clean.We assume that we are like other people, and that they are like us.This is the assumption that misinformed the brothers.This is the assumption that misinforms the salesperson.Do you put yourself into the shoes of each customer and see the world through their eyes, or do you assume that they are like you?Do you unconsciously assume that your customer has your financial limitations? Do you secretly believe that they should do what you would do?These are the reasons you struggle as a salesperson.You believe you are being empathetic, but you are not.You aren’t putting yourself into their shoes; you’re putting them into yours.Roy H. Williams

Indy Beagle posted a T-shirt in the rabbit hole that said, “If life gives you melons, you might be dyslexic.” Princess Pennie laughed when she read it.If that T-shirt had said, “If life gives you oranges, you might be dyslexic,” would she – or anyone else – have laughed?Pleasant surprise is the foundation of delight.Confusion is the foundation of frustration.When something unexpected happens, but it makes sense, it is surprising.When something unexpected happens and it makes no sense, it is confusing.To get a click online is to get attention.But to hold that attention requires engagement.Are you satisfied with getting a click, or would you also like to make the sale?People who are engaged are looking for closure. They are following a mystery that needs to be solved.Headlines and subject lines that create a mystery are more effective than those that solve one.No mystery, no click.No continuing mystery, no engagement.The key to holding attention is to introduce a new mystery just as you solve the previous one. This works online exactly as it works in literature, mass media, and entertainment.The quicker your sequences of mystery and resolution, the more likely you are to hold the attention of your audience. This is what separates good stand-up comics from people who take too long to tell a joke.Consider the mysteries implied by these famous opening lines:Call me Ishmael. – Moby DickIt was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen. — 1984This is the saddest story I have ever heard. — The Good SoldierIt was a wrong number that started it. — City of GlassI am an invisible man. —Invisible Man124 was spiteful. — BelovedIn a sense, I am Jacob Horner. — The End of the RoadThey shoot the white girl first. — ParadiseI write this sitting in the kitchen sink. — I Capture the CastleWhen your subject lines harbor mysteries, you’ll see your open rate rise like the sun on Easter morning. And if you solve that mystery just as you introduce a second one, you will have achieved engagement.Novelists and playwrights have known this for hundreds of years.Screenwriters and comedians have known it for decades.I’m merely suggesting that you might experiment with it in your ads.Who knows? It might work for ad writers, too.Roy H. Williams

Day after day, business owners tell ad writers, “We just need more sales opportunities. It’s a numbers game. If you double our traffic, we’ll double our sales. Now show me what you can do.”These business owners don’t understand that today’s close rate dictates tomorrow’s sales opportunities.Some businesses will run customers off faster than a good ad writer can bring them in. But still they will tell that ad writer, “We just need more sales opportunities. Double our traffic and we’ll double our sales.”What that company really needs, of course, is to increase their close rate. And the secret to increasing your close rate is to align the personality of your sales process with the personality of your advertising.But that will never happen as long as your sales manager remains untethered from your ad writer.It’s easier to grow a company that closes 6 out of 10 sales opportunities than it is to grow a company that closes only 2 out of 10. Straightforward math would tell you that it should be only 3 times easier, but then you’d be forgetting about the exponential impact of customer referrals.There are exceptions, of course. A company with a truly extraordinary product can utterly botch their sales training and customer service and still do just fine. This is particularly true in technology and in restaurants.But let’s talk about that disconnect between your sales manager and your ad writer.This is a blind spot shared by the majority of American companies.Think of those people in your company who respond to customer inquiries as your first responders. These first responders include the people who answer telephones and who respond to emails and to live chat inquiries on your website. And then, of course, there are your service people and your salespeople.Your first responders are continuing a conversation that began with your advertising. And your customer has clear expectations about who they expect your people to be and how they expect your people to act.When your first responders speak and act differently than your customer expected, that customer feels ambushed and betrayed. Remove this disconnection by being the company your customer believes you to be, and you’ll see your close rate climb faster than a happy squirrel harvesting acorns in an oak tree.Strong ad campaigns communicate a distinctly memorable corporate “personality” that distinguishes a company from its competitors. Rippling that attractive personality through your advertising is especially important when the public perceives your products and services to be essentially the same as those of your competitors.Win the heart and the mind will follow. The mind will always create logic to justify what the heart has already decided.A good ad writer will cause the public to like you.Now all you have to do is be the company the public liked.And now you know the most important truth of advertising.Your ads don’t communicate a distinctly memorable personality?Then you don’t have a strong ad campaign.You don’t have a high close rate?Then you don’t have alignment between the expectation of your customers and the performance of your first responders.Are your first responders using the signature phrases that made your ads famous? Do they embody the corporate personality communicated in those ads?Or is your sales process independent from your advertising?If you want to talk more about it, Indy Beagle has a lot to share with you in the rabbit hole.Roy H. Williams

Is your bandwidth keeping you from fulfilling your purpose?Do you have too much to do and too little time?Your bandwidth is limited by:1. the number of hours in a day.2. your physical stamina and capacity.3. your mental and emotional limits as a human being.4. your inability to juggle the number of desires, needs, demands, and emergencies hurtling toward you.No matter how hard you try to overcome these limits, they are there, they are real, and they will remain.Chances are, you’ve been at the limits of your bandwidth for quite some time.Bandwidth is easy to explain, but purpose is hard to explain because it can come from multiple sources, be evaluated from multiple perspectives, and be known by many names.1. Is your purpose the achievement of your goals, the fulfillment of your vision, the crossing of that last item off your bucket list?2. Is your purpose dictated to you by your circumstances? It is to fulfill your duties as a son or daughter, husband or wife, father or mother, grandfather or grandmother, or as a loyal friend or trusted employee?3. Is your purpose chosen for you by something or someone bigger than yourself? Destiny, the universe, or God?I have no argument with any of these beliefs.Here’s my concern: I am subject to the tyranny of the “merely urgent” every day, so I rarely stop to ask myself, “What would be the consequences if I chose to ignore this?”I find myself putting off the truly important, day after day, to take care of an endless list of small-but-urgent obligations.Is it just me, or are you doing this also?I’m not asking for your help or advice.And I’m certainly not telling you how to live your life.I’m just sharing a personal observation:Urgent things are rarely important.Important things are rarely urgent.And learning to tell one from the otheris the key to a happier, healthier, more productive life.If you and I were to say yes to one big thing each day, and say no to all the little things, how much more might we accomplish?Roy H. Williams

Ten days ago, at the annual meeting of the most innovative and successful small business owners in America,* I was handed a series of questions to answer during the problem-solving session. Most of the questions had to do with recurrent frustrations in business.When I saw the group excitedly taking notes, I was a little bit surprised. Then it hit me, “I’m a lot older than most of these people, so they haven’t learned these things yet.”If they were glad to hear those solutions, maybe you will be, too.Here are a few of the things I told them:Your work doesn’t always speak for itself.Explain what you did and why you did it. Talk about a couple of ideas you considered, but rejected, and explain why you rejected those solutions. Only then will your client understand the thought and planning and effort you put into what you are delivering to them.You have maximum credibility when you put the sale at risk.Agreements established before money changes hands are the agreements that will forever guide the relationship. The time to explain what will not be included is when the sale hasn’t yet been made. Clearly and memorably emphasize anything you need your customer to remember in the future. To gloss over a possible disappointment during your presentation – or to bury it in the fine print – is to deceive your customer and poison their future trust in you. So say the difficult thing up-front. Don’t wait until later.When your customer rejects the solution you have prepared, don’t argue with them, even when they are clearly wrong.Just do the extra work. Only after they have approved your second solution will you have the credibility to convince them not to use it. To debate with them earlier will only make it look like you’re trying to avoid doing the extra work. But don’t be surprised if your second solution is every bit as good as your first. When that happens, just go with the second solution. Remember: it’s not about “winning.” It’s about making your customer happy.Never be afraid to charge more than anyone else in your category.And never be afraid to pay the highest price, either. The only company that can fund a customer’s hoped-for experience is the company with a fat profit margin. The services you get for half-price aren’t the same services you get for full price.It’s harder to get attention in larger cities because there is so much more happening.Ad campaigns take longer to get established in large cities due to the customer distraction caused by marketplace noise. The upside of large cities, however, is that the market potential is so much higher. Businesses in smaller towns often take off quicker, only to later face a sharply limited market potential due to the smaller population.Growing a local business from 2 or 3 percent of the market potential to 20 percent of the market potential is easier (and more fun) than lifting it the next 5 points, (from 20% to 25%.)The reason for this is because you will have picked all the low-hanging fruit by the time you are making 20 percent of all the sales in your category. In other words, you’ll be selling everyone who likes to buy the way you like to sell. Growing the 8 points between 25 and 33 percent of market potential will likely require you to make some changes you have long been reluctant to make. And growing a business beyond 33 percent of market potential is virtually impossible. The only exception to this is when the category has a shortage of committed competitors.Here are a few different ways to calculate market potential for any business:(Try to do it three different ways and see if the numbers...

Responsibility limits your Freedom,and freedom is a good thing.So is responsibility wrong and evil?Sigh.The only hard choice in lifeis the choice between two good things.Justice and Mercyare at opposite endsof a teeter-totter.Honesty and Loyaltywrestle in your heart,do they not?Opportunity and Securityare inversely proportionate.One will decreaseas the other increases.These are a few of the examples that spring to mind when we read the words of the Nobel Prize-winning physicist, Niels Bohr: “The opposite of a correct statement is a false statement. But the opposite of a profound truth may well be another profound truth.”Keep in mind that Niels was a physicist, not a philosopher.Jonathan Haidt shines some light on this subject in his book, The Righteous Mind, citing a wealth of research that indicates how our beliefs come primarily from our intuitions, with rational thought coming afterward, to justify our initial beliefs.That’s an uncomfortable thought, I agree.But does that make it wrong?Fifteen years before Knopf Doubleday published The Righteous Mind, Bard Press published The Wizard of Ads. On its frontispiece you will find The Seven Laws of the Advertising Universe.The third law is this:“Intellect and Emotion are partners who do not speakthe same language. The intellect finds logic to justifywhat the emotions have decided. Win the heartsof the people, their minds will follow”I was able to write those words with confidence because Dr. Roger Sperry won the Nobel Prize in 1981 for his documentation of brain lateralization, which says in effect that we don’t have a single brain divided into two halves so much as we have two separate, competing brains.Our left hemisphere is logical, rational, sequential, deductive reasoning.It also contains the language functions.Our right hemisphere recognizes patterns and is intuitive. These can be patterns of behavior, patterns in history, or patterns in auditory or visual phenomena. But our right hemispheres don’t know right from wrong, true from false, or fact from fiction. That’s the left brain’s job.Speaking of the brain, Dr. Sperry said, “Each hemisphere of the brain is indeed a conscious system in its own right, perceiving, thinking, remembering, reasoning, willing, and emoting, all at a characteristically human level, and . . . both the left and the right hemisphere may be conscious simultaneously in different, even in mutually conflicting, mental experiences that run along in parallel.”So we have an uptight, suspicious, legalistic left brain, and a free-wheeling, ready-to-party, intuitive and mystical right brain that doesn’t require proof or evidence. It is always willing to believe.Was evolution the origin of our species,with our brains evolving over billions of years,or did God simply create us this way?In any event, you can be sure that we haveopposing brain hemispheres for a reason.I wonder what it is.Roy H. Williams

“Facts tell, stories sell,” is a principle known to every top-tier ad writer.Stories change people while statistics give them something to argue about.People remember stories long after bullet-points are forgotten.Tom Robbins said, “I mean we are all, as human beings, caught up in a web of narration, this great narrative web, and we have always defined ourselves, human beings, through narration, through stories.”In his final speech to broadcasters on March 8, 2003, Paul Harvey said,“And should you visit my skyscraper offices in Chicago – and you’re always welcome – your attention will focus first on a large portrait on the reception room wall. It’s a portrait of a young boy. His clothing dates itself to a generation past, the plus-fours are wretchedly wrinkled, the misshapen shoes are worn out. One of them is worn through. But the boy, leaning forward on one elbow, is listening enrapt to a 1930s-vintage cathedral-shaped, multi-dial radio. The boy does not resemble any person in particular, except to me. The artist is an Oklahoman named Jim Daly, whom I have never met, but with his painting he included this note. He said, ‘There is no way for me to express the pleasure I received from listening to the old radio programs. In my mind, those wonderful heroes were magnificent. No movie, no television program, not even real-life could have equated what my imagination could conjure up. Amazingly, all of those heroes’ he says, ‘looked a bit like me… And all of those heroes,’ he described, ‘looked a bit like me.'”The first American census was taken in 1790, fourteen years after the nation declared its independence from Britain; 3,893,635 persons were in that final count, which included 694,280 slaves. In other words, the total population of the United States was slightly smaller than today’s metropolitan Atlanta, slightly bigger than modern Detroit.1790 was just 228 years ago. Only 6 or 7 generations.I could say, “America became America because of the stories we told ourselves,” but that might lead you to believe that America has become what it will always be. But the new and different stories we are telling ourselves today are reshaping us, making us a different America.We become what we tell ourselves.“Those who tell the stories hold the power in society. Today television tells most of the stories to most of the people, most of the time.” – George Gerbner“Whether you read a newspaper, watch TV or follow the news online, only 14 percent of the stories you hear about were developed by journalists defining an issue and pursuing it. A staggering 86 percent of the stories were fed to broadcasters by official sources and press releases. In 1960 the PR agent-to-journalist ratio operating in the US was 0.75 to 1. Today the ratio is 5 to 1.” – John Nichols and Robert W. McChesney, The Death and Life of American Journalism Paul Harvey concluded his speech in 2003 by saying,“Isn’t it a shame that with noisy, distressing, depressing news hour after hour, day-in and day-out; by our emphasis on all of the bad things, crime and inflation and pollution and floods and fires and discord and discontent; by our persistent preoccupation with negatives, we tend to un-sell ourselves and our children on a way of life which in fact is the envy of the rest of the world. And that repetition is effective. I tell you, repetition is effective. Repetition is effective.”You and I speak a world into existence every day.And the kind of world we createDepends onlyOn the kinds of storiesWe tell.Roy H. Williams

Seek the teacher who is a mentor to apprentices. She will give you expert advice and examples, then evaluate your ability to do as she has taught. Her name is Wisdom and you should always listen to her voice.But Wisdom’s teacher allowed young Wisdom to follow any path she chose!Wisdom learned her lessons from Consequences, the greatest teacher of all.Wisdom can give you interesting examples because of all the fascinating things she learned from Consequences. You will know you are in the presence of Wisdom when you see her scars.Wisdom and Consequences are happy teachers who guide students through the adventures of life.A sad teacher repeats only what she’s been told, then grades you on how well you can repeat it back to her. She is a parrot, and she teaches other parrots.A smart person makes a mistake, learns from it, and never makes that mistake again.A wise person finds a smart person, and learns how to avoid that mistake altogether.A fool listens to a parrot, and believes what he is told.“But wait a minute, didn’t you say a wise person finds a smart person so they can learn how to avoid the mistake altogether?”“Yes, but the parrot is not a smart person. She never made the mistake and learned from it. She is just repeating what she’s been told.”“And why is that dangerous?”“When the experience of Consequences has been removed from the classroom, the majestic principles of Wisdom quickly degrade into small and silly rules.”The great fire-breathing dragonbecomes a tiny lizardwho lives in a little rulebook.Every bureaucrat was once a young parrot taught by a sad teacher.But was there ever a child who, late at night, lay under the covers and dreamed of someday becoming the enforcer of small and petty policies?No. But there are children who were unlucky enough to be protected from Consequences by a misguided someone who did not understand the value of scars.Roy H. Williams

Competition can be entertaining, but I do not consider it to be “play.”Is than un-American of me?Play, for me, can have no objective; no element of strategy or combat or debate.Writing for The New Yorker on Nov.14, 2011, John McPhee shares an anecdote about George Hartzog, a man who understood my kind of play, and Tony Buford, a man who did not.“It was Hartzog who took a set of plans that had been lying dormant for fifteen years and built the great arch of St. Louis. Those who know the story of the arch say that had it not been for Hartzog there would be no arch. Hartzog the ranger is a hero in St. Louis, but at this moment he is not a hero to Tony Buford. ‘God damn it, George, this river is a mess. There is no point fishing this God-damned river, George. The fishing here is no good.'”“Hartzog looks at Buford for a long moment, and the expression on his face indicates affectionate pity. He says, ‘Tony, fishing is always good.’ The essential difference between these friends is that Buford is an aggressive fisherman and Hartzog is a passive fisherman. Spread before Buford on the bow deck of his jon boat is an open, three-tiered tackle box that resembles the keyboard of a large theatre organ.”Likewise, John Ciardi understood the importance of true play, as does every great poet. Here is a portion of his essay, How Does a Poem Mean?Robert Frost knew precisely what the German critic Baumgarten meant when he spoke of the central impulse toward poetry – and toward all art – as the Spieltrieb, the play impulse.An excellent native example of the play impulse in poetry is the child clapping its hands in response to a Mother Goose rhyme. What does a child care for “meaning”? What on earth is the “meaning” of the following poem?High Diddle diddleThe cat and the fiddleThe cow jumped over the moon;The little dog laughedTo see such craftAnd the dish ran away with the spoon.“Preposterous,” says Mr. Gradgrind. But the child is wiser: he is busy having a good time with the poem. The poem pleases and involves him. He responds to it in an immediate muscular way. He recognizes its performance at once and wants to act with it.This is the first level of play, as rhythm is the first element of music. The child claps hands, has fun, and the play involves practically no thoughtful activity. Beyond this level of response, there begins the kind of play whose pleasure lies for the poet in overcoming meaningful and thoughtful (and ‘feelingful’) difficulties, and for the reader in identifying with the poet in that activity.My purpose today is to remind you of the delight to be had exploring ideas without purpose or plan or agenda.All you have to do is follow your curiosity. This can be done alone or with friends who understand the rules.Rules? Rules for play?Yes. Here they are. For an activity to be play, it must be:intrinsically motivating.If you play because you want to win, you’re not truly playing.freely chosen.If you play because you have to, you’re not playing.actively engaging.If you’re disinterested, you’re not playing.fun. You must derive pleasure from it.Some people would call such activities “wasting time.”But time cannot be wasted, it can only be spent.This is what time spent playing can buy:relaxation of the mind,restoration of optimism,rejuvenation of the soul.Are you up for it?If so, Indy Beagle and I have a proposal for you in today’s rabbit hole.To enter the rabbit hole, all you have to do is click the...

The strangeness of our world is demonstrated by the things we take for granted.I bought a used book. The previous owner’s name was Mary Lou. I know this because she used the stub of her boarding pass as a book marker.A few years ago, Mary Lou took United Airlines flight 5409 from San Diego to Los Angeles on New Year’s Day. She sat in seat 10C.No big deal, right? You can read all that on the stub of the boarding pass.But then I also know that she’s 44 years old with short, blonde hair and bright blue eyes. I know the sound of her voice and the name of her 11-year-old son and her home address in Minneapolis. I can name each of the 8 companies that have employed her as an events coordinator. And I know that she is a very private person.It took me less than 5 minutes to learn these things and I was only mildly curious.All I had to do was ask the companion in my pocket. She knows everything.My companion even gives me directions when I’m driving. “Turn here. Get in the left lane to turn left at the next intersection. Your destination will be on the right.” She knows every nook and cranny of every city, town and village on earth.She showed me a photo of the house where Mary Lou lives with her husband and her son.The strangeness of our world is demonstrated by the things we take for granted.There is a multicolored dog who lives across the street, two houses down.He races me for about 100 yards every morning when I drive past his house. We both know the finish line. He doesn’t growl or bark or act like he’s protecting his territory, he just likes to see if he can outrun my pickup truck.Strangely, he doesn’t race with Pennie or with anyone else.Only me.And he doesn’t race with me when I’m driving Pennie’s car.I don’t know the dog’s name, so I asked the companion in my pocket.She doesn’t know, either.Roy H. Williams

The feminine ideal was different a hundred years ago. Less sex, more charm.It was her charm that attracted us to young Anastasia Romanov, the daughter of Czar Nicholas II of Russia. This is why we refused to believe it when she was murdered in 1918 following the Bolshevik Revolution. For the next 50 years we embraced every impostor who claimed to be her.Elegant, effortless charm remained a feminine ideal as recently as 50 years ago. It’s what attracted us to the movies of Audrey Hepburn.Anastasia and Audrey represent the Regal Queen, one of the four feminine archetypes of Carl Jung.But Anastasia and Audrey were bumped aside by the blonde bombshells of Marilyn Monroe and Jayne Mansfield, poster girls for the objectification of women. And I mean “poster girls” quite literally. Marilyn was the centerfold in the first-ever issue of Playboy magazine, with Jayne following in her footsteps 17 months later.Marilyn and Jayne represent the Erotic Lover, another of the four feminine archetypes.Just as the Regal Queen was in vogue 100 years ago, so was the impudent ingénue. America was riveted by the antics of Alice Roosevelt, the mischievous young daughter of Teddy. And when Alice exited the White House, we replaced her with young Shirley Temple, the impetuous embodiment of Little Orphan Annie.This young “court jester” persona of Alice and Shirley and Little Orphan Annie is a sub-type of the Wise Woman archetype,which is the feminine variation of the masculine Wizard or Magician. It continues to this day as an icon of female empowerment in characters such as Katniss Everdeen from The Hunger Games, Lara Croft from Tomb Raider, Bella Swan from Twilight, and Hermione Grainger from the Harry Potter series.Girl Power.I’ve saved the first of the female archetypes for last, however, because Mother Eve is the least appreciated and most misunderstood.I blame the translators of the 1611 King James Bible.We meet Eve in the second chapter of Genesis when God says, “It is not good for man to be alone. I will make him an ezer kenegdo.” The King James version translates this as, “a help meet for him,” while other translations say “helpmate” or “helper.” (In 1611, meet meant appropriate.)This mistranslation in 1611 caused Christians to believe that the proper role of women was to be the “assistant,” or servant, to their man.The Hebrew term ezer kenegdo is notoriously difficult to translate. In fact, it appears nowhere in the Bible except the second chapter of Genesis.But we know for certain that it doesn’t mean “helper.” A more accurate translation would be “lifesaver.”Let’s look at the two separate words that form ezer kenegdo.Ezer is always interpreted as “power” or “strength” or “rescue.”Throughout the Bible, it speaks only of God, especially when you desperately need him to come through for you.“There is no one like the God of Jeshurun, who rides on the heavens to be your ezer.” – Deut. 33:26“Blessed are you, O Israel! Who is like you, a people saved by the LORD? He is your shield and ezer and your glorious sword.’ – Deut. 33:29“I lift up my eyes to the hills-where does my ezer come from?...

Do you have favorite books and movies?Are there songs you love and stories that captivate you?Is there art that speaks to your heart?Paintings and plays, movies and music, stories and sculptures: art is valuable to the degree that it triggers emotion. But it isn’t always the art, itself, that triggers the emotion. Sometimes the art is merely a point-of-contact with an idea – or an ideal – with which we identify.We’re attracted to art when itstands for something we believe in,shows us a reflection of our own values,gives us a glimpse of our own inner face.An icon symbolizes a thought or a feeling for which we do not have sufficient words.But when the symbolism of an icon becomes too obvious, we call it a cliché.We are attracted to mysterious icons.We are repelled by predictable clichés.“Mr. LeSage, sir, I’ve got a tender new script about a sensitive young subway guard that just stinks of courage and integrity. And I know, sir, that next to scripts that are Tender and Poignant, you love scripts that have Courage and Integrity. This one, sir, as I say, stinks of both. It’s full of melting-pot types. It’s sentimental. It’s violent in the right places. And just when the sensitive young subway guard’s problems are getting the best of him, destroying his faith in Mankind and the Little People, his nine-year-old niece comes home from school and gives him some nice, pat chauvinistic philosophy handed down to us through posterity and P.S. 564 all the way from Andrew Jackson’s backwoods wife. It can’t miss, sir! It’s down-to-earth, it’s simple, it’s untrue, and it’s familiar enough and trivial enough to be understood and loved by our greedy, nervous, illiterate sponsors.”– J. D. Salinger, from “Zooey,” published in The New Yorker in 1957According to W. H. Auden, “Great art is clear thinking about mixed feelings.”And according to Rob Kapilow, sappy clichés are “clear thinking about clear feelings.”I share this with you today in the hope that you will be able to use the richness of archetypes and icons in your advertising without falling into the molasses of sappy cliché.When a person spends money, they tell you everything about themselves that matters.Our purchases remind us – and announce to the world around us – who we are. Our favorite brands communicate what we stand for, what we believe in. We direct our dollars in ways that reflect our values and offer a glimpse of our souls.Great ads create a lasting bond with customers through the artful use of archetype and icon.What? You’re convinced people just want the facts? The unadorned truth?It’s 1991. We see workers in a car factory as we hear the voice of Brian Keith,“A car is a car. It won’t make you handsome or prettier or younger. And if it improves your standing with the neighbors, then you live among snobs. A car is steel, electronics, rubber, plastic and glass. A machine. And in the end, may the best machine win… Subaru. What to drive.”In 1992, we see the next ad in that series:“Making a sports car, it seems mandatory to mention how fast it can go. Instead, why not mention the things you shouldn’t mention about a sports car: a strong weld, over 24 safety features, all-wheel drive, engineering that endures. Still, if it’s speed you want, we promise, with the Subaru SVX you’ll easily be able to go as fast as the law allows… Subaru. What to drive.”And then the campaign evolved into open mockery of people who identify with the cars they drive.Shot from a low angle, we look upward at a man who looks down on us. He says,MAN 1: A luxury car says a lot about its owner.WOMAN 1: Mine says I’m witty beyond belief.MAN 2: Mine says I’m more Europeanish.MAN 3: Mine says I’m the product of superior genes.WOMAN...

You walk out the door. A person raises a forefinger and says, “Quick question.”And then they tie you up for the next 30 minutes.Have you ever been ambushed this way?Quick questions don’t always have quick answers and you can’t give 30 minutes to every person who raises a forefinger, so the next time you’re ambushed, smile as you continue walking and say, “Walk with me.” The questioner will invariably fall into step beside you.If you stop walking, you’ve officially been “captured.”A walking person is obviously headed somewhere, so “Walk with me” indicates that your time to speak with them will be over when you get to where you’re headed. When you get there, shake their hand and say, “I’m glad we got to talk.” And then disappear.“Walk with me” is how to make sure that quick questions remain quick.But sometimes you need to give your full attention to what a person is saying.Tom Peters became the king of business authors in 1982 when he wrote In Search of Excellence, a book that sold 3 million copies in its first 4 years.Today, at 75 years old, Tom Peters says listening is “the bedrock of leadership excellence,” but characterizes himself as a bad listener and “a serial interrupter.” So to help him stay focused on the other person, he writes the word “LISTEN” on the palm of his hand before walking into meetings. He says, “The focus must be on what the other person is saying, not on formulating your response. That kind of listening shows respect for the other person, and they notice it.” 1According to Roger Dooley at Forbes.com, “Peters cites research that on average, doctors listen to a patient describing symptoms for just eighteen seconds before interrupting… Professionals who are smart and who know what they are talking about are often the worst listeners.”I’ve noticed that people who are smart and know what they are talking about are also the worst explainers.This is due to a disease called “the curse of knowledge” that afflicts every expert.When speaking about a subject we know intimately, we assume our audience has a higher level of familiarity with our subject matter than they actually possess. Consequently, we believe they are “connecting the dots” when in fact they are barely following what we are saying.To become a more effective teacher, all you have to do is add the words “which means…” to every statement of fact you make. You can do this out loud or in your mind. Either way, you will be prompted to connect the dots for your audience, and they will love you for it.Gen Z was born between 1995 and 2015.[which means they are between 3 and 23 years old.which means the youngest “millennial” is currently 24 and growing older every day.which means the future will be firmly in the hands of Gen Z in about 25 years.]77% of Gen Z prefer reading printed books and 59% don’t trust Facebook. 2[which means our current obsession with the internet may turn out to be a fad.]34% of Gen Z said they were permanently leaving social media, and 64% are taking a break because “the platforms make them feel anxious or depressed.” 2[which means social media may continue to loosen its grip on our attention.which means there is still hope for the return of face-to-face social interaction.which means Gen Z is reflecting the values of their grandparents who grew up in the 60’s and 70’s.which means the pendulum of society is swinging precisely as it has for the past 3,000 years.]Now read those 3 statements of fact without...

“He knew how to lead by listening and teaching.”– Erwin C. Hargrove, a professor of political science at Vanderbilt University, writing in 1998 about a leader he much admired.I, too, have known brilliant leaders like that; men and women who lead by listening and teaching.Brian Scudamore, Lori Barr, Richard Kessler, Cathy Thorpe, Erik Church, Sarah Casebier, David Rehr, Michele Miller, Brian Alter, Richard D. Grant and David St. James to name just a few. I mentioned one such leader, Dewey Jenkins, in last week’s Monday Morning Memo. Another of them, Ken Sim, is currently running for mayor of Vancouver.According to Professor Hargrove, the key to leadership is to hearken to “the better angels of our nature,” a phrase he borrowed from Abraham Lincoln, who used it in his first inaugural address on March 4, 1861.But we didn’t listen to Lincoln. We chose civil war just 6 weeks later.The leader that Professor Hargrove admired who “knew how to lead by listening and teaching,” was another American president who encouraged us during a different time of social upheaval – the Great Depression.“In February 1933, a man shot at [Franklin Delano] Roosevelt, who was riding in an open car in Miami, but succeeded in killing Anton Cermak, the mayor of Chicago, who was with the president-elect. FDR was calm and deci­sive, ordering the driver to go immediately to the hospital, paying no attention to his own security, and talking to the wounded man. His calm courage impressed all who saw him.”– Erwin C. Hargrove,The President As A Leader: Appealing to the Better Angels of Our Nature, p. 79 (1998)The Stanford Library review of Professor Hargrove’s book ends with this statement: “In harking back to Lincoln’s evocation of the better angels of our nature, Hargrove reminds us that we may, even as leaders, be better versions of ourselves.”And the key to becoming that “better version of ourselves” is to become focused listeners and patient teachers.The reason history repeats itself is because we don’t pay attention the first time.Anti-intellectualism in American Life was written in 1964 by Richard Hofstadter, a professor of American History at Columbia University.It won him the Pulitzer Prize. It was his second. He won his first Pulitzer for his 1955 book, The Age of Reform.Reading these books has caused me to develop a theory.Can I share my observations with you?Our obsession with the internet has led us to believe that we are smarter and wiser than any previous generation.We quietly assume that anyone over 40 is a dinosaur, and that every famous historical figure was innocently naive. “But they couldn’t help it,” we sympathize, “because they didn’t know everything like we do now.”We ignore the centuries of experience of previous generations.We are teaching. But we are not listening.And those who teach – without listening – share their own preferences as though those preferences were wisdom.But what do I know? I’m over 40.Roy H. Williams

Dewey Jenkins says, “If your employees don’t look forward to company meetings, then you’re not doing it right.”Dewey has grown his company to nearly 100 times the size it was when he bought it, so I tend to listen to what he says.Dewey taught me to celebrate, not just the touchdowns, but the first downs.Dewey smiles and says, “Celebrate, Celebrate, Celebrate!”So I’m going to do that today.Vice-Chancellor Whittington posted a “Tower Update” video last week promoting Bonding as a Branding Strategy, a new class debuting at Wizard Academy on August 29 and 30. (Wednesday and Thursday of next week. I think there are still a couple of rooms available on campus.)What I’m celebrating is that he explains “customer bonding” in his video better than I do! And I’m the one who taught it to him! Heck, I’m the guy who invented the term!I’m celebrating because he proved he understood it by building a Wizard Academy YouTube channel with my oldest son, Rex, that currently has more than 112,000 subscribers and is adding hundreds more daily.I’m celebrating because they built that highly successful YouTube channel without spending a single cent on advertising or promotion.I’m celebrating because 500 of those YouTube viewers – that’s right, 500 prospective new students – will be flying to Austin from all over North America this Saturday to tour the Wizard Academy campus and hear about all the other courses we teach.I’m celebrating because the Whiskey Sommelier storytelling program created by vice-chancellor Whittington has already delivered a large number of new students to Wizard Academy.I’m celebrating because the principles taught in that Whiskey Sommelier program aren’t a departure from our established curricula. The sommeliers are taught how to “romance” the whiskey they’re about to pour through delightful, artful descriptions of it. We’re teaching them how to craft and deliver messages that create strong bonds and dramatically increase sales.I’m celebrating because many of these newly-graduated Whiskey Sommeliers have already signed up to take additional courses that aren’t whiskey-related.Best of all, most of these new students have never heard of Roy H. Williams.After spending 20 years and millions of dollars to build a 501c3 educational organization, I now know for certain that Wizard Academy will continue to thrive long after Princess Pennie and I are gone.And that’s definitely a thing worth celebrating.Roy H. WilliamsPS – Don’t get the wrong idea. Pennie and I aren’t, to my knowledge, going away anytime soon. It’s just good to know that the school is no longer dependent on us.

Reading that Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910) was a Christian anarchist, I had an unexpected thought, so I asked Google, “What is the difference between an anarchist and a libertarian?”Six-tenths of a second later, The Goog told me – in a highly visible block at the top of the Search Engine Results Page:“An anarchist is an extreme libertarian, like a socialist is an extreme democrat, and a fascist is an extreme republican. It’s like the difference between a lover and a rapist. They’re both in the same place but one uses violence to get there. Libertarians believe in free markets, private property, and capitalism.”And included in that featured snippet was a hyperlink to ChaosPark.com, the low-budget website of a better-than-average writer named Harry Reid.Harry paid nothing for Google’s recommendation of him and his website. He earned it by crafting the most concise, cogent answer to an often-asked question.Google is rewarding writers of concise content, wordsmiths who get to the point.When Google’s featured snippet is your answer to a commonly asked question in your business category, Google is telling the world that YOU are the expert of experts. It seems, to me, this should be the goal of every Search Engine Optimizer.But this would require them:to be experts in your business category, andto be better-than-average writers.But since they are neither of these, they will tell you the secret to becoming a featured snippet is in the microdata, and then fly into a blur of activity with a flurry of sparks and elbows.Take a quick look at Harry Reid’s ChaosPark.com and I think you’ll see that Harry doesn’t give a rat’s ass about microdata, metadata, or SEO. He’s just a guy writing about things that interest him, and he knows how to summarize big ideas in few words.Does your business interest you? Can you summarize big ideas in few words?Before you can take a person to where you want them to go, you must meet them where they are. You must answer their questions –as asked– and speak to them within the frame of their own experience.Leo Tolstoy knew this, and he used his novels as instruments for the examination of social issues. War and Peace (1869,) Anna Karenina (1887,) and The Death of Ivan Ilyich (1886,) were not meant to be entertainments, but persuasive lessons about life and living. Tolstoy met his readers where they were, so that he could take them where he wanted them to go.John knew this, too, so he framed his Good News to be easily understood by the people of the region in which he made his home. One of the 4 “first followers” of Jesus, John wrote to the people of Ephesus within the frame of their own experience.But that’s another story.What does your customer already care about?What does your customer already understand?If you will be persuasive, you need to begin your story exactly there.Before you can take a person to where you want them to go, you must meet them where they are.Roy H. Williams

The pivotal moments in our lives are rarely announced with trumpets and fanfare.But wouldn’t it be great if they were?“Hello, this is God speaking. You’re at an inflection point in your life and although you don’t suspect it, the wisdom you’re about to receive from that old man over there is going to empower you to achieve things you never imagined. So pay attention, okay? This is a really big moment. Don’t let it slip past you.”No, that doesn’t happen. Not the voice, anyway.But the moment definitely happens.We just don’t realize it until years later.You are Frodo Baggins. You are on a journey. The old man you meet in the woods is Gandalf. He will equip you with what you need.You are Luke Skywalker. You are on a journey. The old man you meet in the woods is Obi Wan Kenobi. He will equip you with what you need. For now.Later, you face challenges for which Obi Wan did not equip you. You are lost in the woods again. You meet another old man. His name is Yoda. He is funny and small but pay attention to him. He will equip you with what you need.Now you are you.You are about to meet an old man in the woods. His name is Warren Buffett.I’m going to pretend to be God, okay?Don’t laugh. I’m doing this for you.“You’re at an inflection point in your life and the wisdom you’re about to receive is going to empower you to achieve things you never imagined. So pay attention, okay? This is a really big moment. Don’t let it slip past you.”“I was genetically blessed with a certain wiring that’s very useful in a highly developed market system where there’s lots of chips on the table, and I happen to be good at that game. Ted Williams wrote a book called The Science of Hitting and in it he had a picture of himself at bat and the strike zone broken into, I think, 77 squares. And he said if he waited for the pitch that was really in his sweet spot he would bat .400 and if he had to swing at something on the lower corner he would probably bat .235. And in investing I’m in a ‘no called strike’ business which is the best business you can be in. I can look at a thousand different companies and I don’t have to be right on every one of them, or even fifty of them. So I can pick the ball I want to hit. And the trick in investing is just to sit there and watch pitch after pitch go by and wait for the one right in your sweet spot. And if people are yelling, ‘Swing, you bum,’ ignore ’em. There’s a temptation for people to act far too frequently in stocks simply because they’re so liquid. Over the years you develop a lot of filters. But I do know what I call my ‘circle of competence’ so I stay within that circle and I don’t worry about things that are outside that circle. Defining what your game is – where you’re going to have an edge – is enormously important.”– Warren Buffett, in the 2017 documentary, Becoming Warren BuffettYou become self-aware when you realize what is – and what is not – in your circle of competence.Most people are not self-aware.Warren Buffett is acutely self-aware.“But I do know what I call my ‘circle of competence’ so I stay within that circle and I don’t worry about things that are outside that circle.”Warren, do you have any last words of wisdom for my friend?“Defining what your game is – where you’re going to have an edge – is enormously important.”That was a big moment.Don’t let it slip past you.Roy H. WilliamsPS – ‘The old man you meet in the woods’ is, as often as not, a woman.PPS – “Intuition becomes increasingly valuable in the new information society precisely because there is so much data.” – John Naisbitt

The Random Quotes database at MondayMorningMemo.com currently contains 4,376 quotes.About a third of these are quotes you can easily find online.Nearly half are delightful passages I’ve transcribed from books, movies, or TV shows, and archived for future reference.Five percent are witty and wonderful statements made by friends during lunch or in casually written emails.And exactly 455 of those 4,376 quotes are words of my own.Quoting oneself might appear to be insufferably egotistical, but in truth, my only objective is to capture thoughts I might want to think upon in the future. Hence my latest addition to the database, made only moments ago, “Boxwine and Soupline are barstool buddies of Spraytan and Parlay. The girl is Parlay’s sister, Parfait.”Innocent readers who stumble upon that quote in the future will doubtless scratch their heads and say, “What the hell?” never suspecting it’s only a note I scribbled to myself about characters in a short story yet to be written.But today, because you are special, I will explain the backstory of those 5 characters.A dozen years ago I hired Devin Wright and trained him to be a media buyer, a professional negotiator. At least once a day I would pop into his office and ask him a wildly unexpected question. Devin would always laugh, and that would be that.But one day about 7 years ago I popped in, pointed at him and asked, “Devin, is that a spray tan?”Devin sputtered and coughed and denied that he would ever do such a thing, so of course being from Oklahoma, I was required to forever thereafter introduce him as Spraytan Wright.Wine snob Boxwine Harrison has the office next to Spraytan.I decided that Boxwine’s little brother would be Soupline.“But whence,” you ask, “come Parlay and Parfait?”Be patient. I’m getting to that.A week ago, Spraytan put $200 on an online gambling site so that he could place bets on sporting events. He quickly turned his $200 into $600, then got bored and lost the whole $600 playing blackjack.His pirate friend Dave Neubert asked, “Did you check your bonus money?”“My what?”“When you put money into an account, they often give you a few bonus dollars just to keep you gambling.”Spraytan checked, and sure enough, he had 4 dollars and 41 cents in bonus money. So he chose 12 fights that would happen later that day, picked his 12 fighters, and parlayed his $4.41 across the entire dozen, which means he had to pick 12 winners in advance or his bet would be forfeited. If even one of his fighters lost, Spraytan would get nothing.Big deal, right? It’s four dollars and 41 cents. And not even his money.So he went to get a haircut.When he got up from the barber chair, Spraytan checked on his bet. Ten of the 12 fights were over, and his fighters had won all 10 fights! He drove home quickly, to say the least.They tell me the gravel from his tires is still flying above that parking lot.Sliding sideways into his driveway, Spraytan ran into his house, turned on the TV and began shouting instructions to fighter number 11. But that guy lost. Then, when Spraytan checked his bet, it turns out that he had bet on the other guy, the winner!When his 12th fighter won the 12th fight, Spraytan looked at his cell phone screen to see that his four dollars and 41 cents was now three thousand, seven hundred and twelve dollars and two cents.When he told me what happened, I said, “Spraytan, I believe you’ve earned a new nickname. After today, I’m going to start calling you Parlay.”He smiled.“But of course Parlay isn’t a word I’m really familiar with. The truth is I never heard that word until you told me your story just now, so I’m sure you’ll understand if I occasionally call you Parfait.”The smile disappeared and Devin said, “I think we should just stick with...

When you have nothing to say, be careful that you don’t pay money to say it.“What do you mean?”Have you ever paid a premium to target the right audience and then made an offer that failed to move them?“Everyone has paid for ads that didn’t work.”Did you realize that your message was at fault, or did you assume that you had mis-targeted?“Well, even when it doesn’t work, at least I get some name recognition.”[sigh] What am I going to do with you? Name recognition is enough only if your competitors are invisible or incompetent.“What do you mean?”Invisible means they don’t have the courage to advertise.Incompetent means their ads are even worse than yours.“But my ads are way better than average. They look and feel professional.”Most ads – even professional ads – aren’t written to persuade. They are written not to offend. This is why most ads speak in worn-out clichés. Why not just add a stock photo and get it over with?“Are you saying that most ads are ineffective?”Even the weakest ads have an effect, but what you’re looking for is long-lasting, cumulative impact.“Can you speak more plainly, please?”Bad advertising is about your product. Good advertising is about your customer and their life. And your customer values nothing so much as they value that circle of people who are close to them. Your customer relates to those people. Your customer identifies with those people. Your customer forgives those people when they screw up.“I thought we were talking about advertising here. You make it sound like I should spend my ad budget trying to make friends.”That’s right! I’m talking to you about trying to make friends! When your customer appreciates you and your comments, they consider you to be a friend, even though they have never met you.“So if I don’t talk about my product, what do I talk about?”Talk about what your customer already cares about. Don’t try to convince them to care about what you wish they cared about.“So what does my customer already care about?”They care about that circle of people I mentioned. They care about the people who care about them. You have the power – if you dare – to take your place in that circle.“But how?”By causing your customer to identify with you.“But why will they identify with me?”They will do it partly because of what you say and how you say it. But they will do it mostly because of what you don’t say.“Okay, so tell me what not to say.”Don’t talk constantly about your company and your product. This just makes your ads sound like ads.“As much as I hate to say it, you’re beginning to make a little bit of sense. But can you give me an example of what you’re talking about?”I’ll ask Indy Beagle to put some recent examples on the first few pages of the rabbit hole.“The rabbit hole? What’s that?”It’s a weekly e-zine for self-selected insiders.“Where?”Just click the image of Indy Beagle at the top of any Monday Morning Memo and you’re in. Indy is reading over my shoulder right now and wagging his tail. I think he has something in mind. I’m curious to see what it is.Roy H. Williams

They told you it was called, “reading between the lines.”But what they didn’t tell you was that the writer put it there – between the lines – for you to figure out on your own.Speak the truth and people will doubt you. But if you can tempt those people to follow you to where they can discover that truth on their own, you will have convinced them to the core of their soul.You’ve got to let them find the treasure on their own.But it’s okay to leave a trail of breadcrumbs.Just don’t be too obvious about it.When the crumbs are too big or too close together, people feel manipulated.You’ll know you’ve done the job perfectly when the person whose eyes you’ve opened wants to tell you about “this wonderful new thing” they have discovered.Mothers go through this every day.How old were you when you finally figured out that most of what you were “discovering” and sharing with your mom was just stuff she had placed in your path for you to find?Wives are good at this, too. Princess Pennie does it with such subtlety and grace that it’s often days or weeks before I realize what she has done.But I am neither a mother nor a wife, so my only option is to clumsily remind you of things you already know. You will then be free to say, “Yes, I already knew that, but thanks for the reminder.”These are the things I would not have you forget:(Or should it be, “These are the things I would have you not forget:”? I’ll let you decide. And I’m reasonably certain that my colon–quotation mark–question mark sequence two sentences ago is improper punctuation, but I can’t figure out how to phrase the question for Google, so with your permission I’ll just move on, okay?)Never claim to be honest. Just say things that only an honest person would say. Having followed the breadcrumbs, the listener will then conclude, “Wow. This person is really honest.”Never claim to be generous. Just freely give what only a generous person would give. The recipient will then conclude, “Wow. This person is really generous.”Never claim to be intelligent. Just listen intently and nod your head as though you understand. The speaker will then conclude, “Wow. This person really gets it.”Now that I think about it, never claim anything at all. Just demonstrate the quality you want to be known for.In other words, shut up and do the thing.Don’t claim things.Demonstrate them.I’m talking about advertising, of course.But I think the same advice also goes for pretty much every other situation in life.Did you notice the anomaly in point 3, the one about intelligence? Did you notice what was missing? Did you hear what I did not say?I did not tell you to, “Just say something that only an intelligent person would say.”Because that NEVER works. Trying to sound intelligent just makes you look like a pompous ass.But you already knew that.You’re such a great listener.Thanks.Roy H. Williams

Listen, my young apprentice, and I will release you from your chains.Every door of opportunity begins as a window in the mind.Look through that window of imagination and glimpse a world that could be, should be, ought to be someday. Keep looking… and watch it grow into a door of Opportunity through which you can pass into an entirely different future.Opportunity never knocks. 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.1Yes, opportunity begins as a window in the mind through which we glimpse possible futures.And then one day we leap through that window.“What is sure, predictable, inevitable – the one certain thing you know concerning your future, and mine?”“That we shall die.”“Yes, there’s really only one question that can be answered, and we already know the answer… The only thing that makes life possible is permanent, intolerable uncertainty; not knowing what comes next.” 2There is a space between yesterday and tomorrow. Do you know the place I mean?It’s called Life.And you’ve got to make a living if you’re going to have a life.How do you want to be paid?Do you want to be paid for your time,or do you want you be paid for your knowledge?Listen, my young apprentice, to what an old man knows.There is no future in being paid by the hour.You must escape from that financial prison.Become good at something.Become astoundingly good.Do you see a person who is skilled in their work?That person will stand before kings. 3Do you wait tables?Become the server whose tables spend twice as much money as the other tables. Restaurants around the world will hire you to teach their servers how to do the same. But don’t let those restaurant owners pay you for your time. Insist that you be paid for the difference you made.Do you stack bricks?Stack them in a way that no one has ever seen bricks stacked before. You have sizes, shapes, and colors. Stack them so they can’t be ignored! But don’t let your customers pay you for your time. Be paid for the difference you made.Listen, my young apprentice, to what an old man knows.Craftsmen are paid for the quality of their work.But craftsmen are paid by the hour.An artist is paid for the impact of their art.Artists are paid for the difference they made.The only thing that separates a craft from an artis how you agree to be paid.Roy H. Williams1 The Monday Morning Memo, July 18, 20052 Ursula K. Le Guin, The Left Hand of Darkness, chapter 53 Proverbs 22:29 (NASB)Do you see a man skilled in his work?He will stand before kings;He will not stand before obscure men.

Every few months, I remind my partners of something that took me way too long to learn.I say, “When a person believes in what they’re doing – even if it’s an imperfect plan – let them keep doing it. Give them advice and try to open their eyes, but don’t fight them too hard, because, ‘A person convinced against their will, remains unconvinced, still.’ So be careful. If you finally convince a person to quit doing what they believe in, and to start doing what you would do if you owned their company, they’re probably going to fail.”People who have spent time with me may find this difficult to believe, but I’m a lot less combative than I used to be.Here is the non-combative technique I use.Listen attentively to the person with whom you disagree.Let them speak until they’re finished.Find a point of agreement, something you can honestly endorse.Tell them why you agree with them. And if they have altered your opinion in any way, confess that to them, as well.Use the point you agree upon to introduce another point which you feel might expand and enrich their perspective.Don’t misunderstand me. I’m not talking about introducing “alternative facts.”I’m talking about introducing your idea as a logical extension of the idea about which you have already agreed.This will cause the other person to feel like they already knew the thing that seemingly just occurred to you.In essence, you’ll be giving them an entirely new perspective while reinforcing what they already believe.Bottom line: Try to avoid telling people they are wrong. You’ll make more progress and achieve more change if you can figure out a way to tell them they are right.Here’s a recent example:An air conditioning client was convinced that we should target the perfect customer profile by using “addressable TV” ads. This would allow us to target specific households individually – rather than as a demographic, geographic, or psychographic group – by using data provided by broadcaster set-top boxes (STBs) and over-the-top (OTT) streaming devices like Apple TV, Google Chromecast, Roku, or Amazon Firestick.The CEO of the air conditioning company said, “Why should we pay to reach people who live in apartments, or who rent their houses from landlords, or who have a home warranty contract with a company other than ours? Wouldn’t it make more sense to target ONLY those homeowners living in houses old enough to need a new air conditioner, and who don’t have a home warranty?”“I love that idea!” I said, “And we’ve already got some great TV ads we could air!” I gave him a high five, then asked, “How much did they say it will cost us?”“They said it will be extremely efficient since we’ll be aiming a rifle with a scope instead of using a shotgun like we’re doing now.”“I don’t doubt that a bit,” I said, “but we do need to find out how much they’re going to charge us per 1,000 households they deliver (CPM.) We’re currently paying a cost-per-thousand (CPM) of $3 on broadcast radio. Now I’m DEFINITELY willing to pay more than $3 per thousand to reach the PERFECT customer rather than the unfiltered, mixed-bag, untargeted customers we’re currently reaching, but how many untargeted customers is one PERECTLY TARGETED customer worth? Is it 4-to-one? 7-to-one? Are we willing to trade 10 untargeted customers for 1 targeted customer? How many are we willing to trade? I think at some point there’s going to be at least one perfect customer in our current, unfiltered assortment of broadcast TV viewers and broadcast radio listeners, don’t you think? And then we get all those other people for free. But I still think this “addressable TV” thing is a great idea. So call and tell them exactly who you want to target and ask for the cost-per-thousand.”After he checked into it, he learned that the cheapest we might possibly

I’ve often wondered what happened to him.Broken Arrow, Oklahoma, 1979: Pennie and I had just moved into our first house.It…was built before Oklahoma became a state,had never had a mortgage on it,had been expanded 3 different times,and was now barely 800 sq. ft.,had sat vacant for more than 10 years,and was sold to us for $21,500.It wasn’t an impressive neighborhood.Pennie looked out our front window and saw a frightening-looking man working on his car. She mentioned it to me. I looked out the window and saw a man in his mid-30s wearing ragged clothes with a dirty pony-tail that trailed below his belt. He had rented the unlivable shack across the street.I walked outside to meet him. “Hi. I’m Roy. I live over there.”“Hi. I’m Harold.”I helped him fix his car, a worn-out Chevy Vega.Harold and I became good friends. He was soft-spoken, respectful, and sentimental. Pennie liked him, too.One Sunday afternoon, the phone rang. It was Harold. “Roy, do you have $400 in cash?”Miraculously, I did have $400 in cash that day, an extremely rare occurrence. “Harold, if you had called on any other day, I wouldn’t have been able to say yes. But I do, in fact, have $400.”“Man, I need you to come and bail me out of jail. I ran a red light at midnight and didn’t have my driver’s license with me. Can you come and bail me out? I can pay you back as soon as we get to my house, I swear.”“I’ll be right there.”As we pulled away from the police station, Harold said, “If you will, I need you to do me one more favor.”“Okay, what is it?”“Follow me to my boss’s house. He’s been wanting to buy my Vega and stuff a big motor in it to make himself a drag racing car. I’ve decided to sell it to him.”We stopped at Harold’s house where he paid me back the $400, then I followed him a few miles to where his boss lived. Harold’s job was to mix cement all day and hand it up in 5 gallon buckets to the brick masons on the scaffold. They paid him in cash each week.Harold gave his boss the car keys, got in my car again, looked at me with tear-filled eyes and said, “One last favor?”“Whatever you need.”“Drive me to the bus station.”“Harold, what’s going on?”He was blinking away the tears. “I’m going to buy a ticket on whatever bus is about to leave the station and I’m going to move to wherever that bus takes me. Roy, I’m an escaped convict.”It took me a few moments to find my voice. “What were you in for, Harold?”That’s when he told me his real name was Jeff-something. Sadly, I’ve forgotten Jeff’s last name because he spoke it just that one time, during a highly distracted moment, 39 years ago.“I had just turned eighteen when my Dad beat the crap out of me and I decided to leave home. I hitchhiked and slept in open fields for a couple of days until I ran out of money for food. I was walking down the road on the morning of the third day when I saw a farmer working all alone. I walked over and asked if he would give me a meal and pay me a few dollars if I helped him all day. He said he would. At the end of the day, he gave me a meal but claimed he never agreed to give me any money. I was really mad, so I walked out to his barn and took a 5-gallon can of gas and a .22 rifle he had for shooting rats and then I started walking down the road.”Back in those days, it was easy for hitchhikers to catch a ride when they were carrying a can of gas to give to whoever picked them up.“I was planning to sell the .22 at the nearest pawn shop. It never occurred to me that the farmer had seen me and called the sheriff. I had only walked about 200 yards when I was arrested and taken to jail.”“What happened next?”“I had been in jail a couple of weeks when I hid under a big pile of dirty clothes in a canvas laundry cart just before they rolled it onto

Dear Radio,I’ve loved you all my life. In fact, I have more confidence in you than you have in yourself.But you have a blind spot, and it’s killing you: radio advertisers are reaching 100% of the city and convincing them 10% of the way, when they should be reaching 10% of the city and convincing them 100% of the way.You’re letting advertisers squander their money on reach without frequency.Your spot rate is determined by your reach, your audience size.The bigger your reach, the bigger your bank account.This is why you dance when you have a good book. 1You push reach.“We’re #1” means “We offer the most reach.”But your client’s success is determined by his frequency.I am your client. Sell me a schedule that gives me big reach with small frequency and I’ll soon be singing, “I tried radio and it didn’t work” at the top of my lungs.Sell me small reach with big frequency and I’ll take over your city, one station at a time. I’ll use relentless frequency to become a household word on a little station, then when that station’s weekly cume of many thousands of listeners 2 have grown my company into a bigger one, I’ll add another station, then another and another until I’m on every station in town.This is not theoretical. I’ve been doing it for 38 years and it has never failed to work. In truth, our clients across the U.S., Canada, and Australia are seeing greater success through radio today than ever before.Frequency should be non-negotiable. Why do you let people on the air without it?And since I sell products and services that have a long selling cycle, I’ll also need consistency.Consistency is the frequency of the frequency.52-week consistency is essential when your client has a long selling cycle. Things like engagement rings, A/C repair, home appliances, drain opening, legal services, auto repair, and insurance have long selling cycles. The way I can win these categories is to become the provider the customer thinks of immediately – and feels best about – when they, or any of the people in their circle of influence, finally need what I sell.The only clients who can succeed without consistency are sellers of food and entertainment – things with a short selling cycle – things we buy every day, or at least every week or two.Reach and frequency are not interchangeable.Who was it that decided we should multiply reach times frequency to calculate gross impressions, and then cast gross impressions as a percentage of the population to calculate gross rating points?The hunger for gross impressions and gross rating points always leads to the purchase of too much reach without enough frequency. When you multiply reach times frequency, you blur the line between the two. Reach is easy to obtain in a media mix. Frequency is not.Reach is not a substitution for frequency.Frequency must be protected at all costs.If I buy 100 gross rating points, I’ve reached the mathematical equivalent of 100% of the population of the trade area 1 time. It would take 1,000,000 gross impressions to give me 100 gross rating points in a city of 1,000,000 people. But does this mean I’ve reached 100% of the people 1 time? Or does it mean I’ve reached 50% of the people twice? Or does it mean I’ve reached 25% of the people 4 times? Or does it mean I’ve reached 10% of the people 10 times? Or does it mean I’ve reached 5% of the people 20 times? Or does it mean I’ve reached 1 sad bastard 1,000,000 times? Each of those scenarios is 100 gross rating points.The only numbers that really matter are:(1.) a weekly Frequency of at least 3.0 and(2.) 7-day Net Reach (18+) 3Sleep erases advertising. This is why you must always measure frequency within a window of 7 night’s sleep. It’s also why 52-week consistency is vital.This is the...

Is established information or new information more likely to be true?Which is more effective, planning or improvisation?Are people essentially good, or essentially selfish?Which is more important, individual rights or collective rights?Will the future of America be better than its past?Are low-income people less intelligent than high-income people?Is the Bible true, or just a collection of ancient folk stories?Are attractive people more reliable than unattractive ones?You may think those questions have obvious answers. But in truth, just as many people chose the opposites.Each of us has foundational assumptions upon which our worldviews are predicated.If your foundational assumptions are different than mine, you’ll interpret experiences, evidence, and data differently than I do.Psychologists call a foundational assumption a “cognitive bias,” but only if your assumption is tightly focused. If we’re discussing your entire collection of foundational assumptions, we’re talking about your “schema.”Your schema, or outlook, is how you believe the universe works.Asking a person to reconsider a foundational assumption is like asking them to change their religion.But every foundational assumption comes with a blind spot.This is true even if your foundational assumptions caused you to answer our opening 8 questions by saying, “Well, it depends on…”We often believe our foundational assumptions are shared by intelligent people everywhere.Because when you “know” something deeply and intrinsically, it’s hard to imagine other people not knowing it. This cognitive bias is often called “the curse of knowledge,” and it’s responsible for a high percentage of bad advertising because it will cause you to answer questions in your ads that no one was asking.Are you beginning to see why it’s important to be aware of your blind spots?Most of us refuse to believe we have blind spots, because to accept that you have blind spots is to accept that your foundational assumptions are flawed, and then who would you be?To point out another person’s blind spot is like undressing them in public; you will not be soon forgiven.And now you know why polite people “never discuss politics or religion” with people outside their own ingroup.And although this may sound Machiavellian, I share it with you not so that you might employ it, but so that you might guard yourself against it: It is easy to manipulate a person when you know their foundational assumptions.Don’t let people manipulate you.When you have the courage to recognize your foundational assumptions for what they are, you are more likely to be happy, more likely to be liked, more likely to experience personal peace.But this open-mindedness comes at a price: you will never be the leader of villagers with torches and pitchforks.But that was never really a goal of yours, was it?Was it?Roy H. Williams

A lawyer and a rabbi are arguing about what it means to be kind.It is an ancient argument.The lawyer thinks a “kind” person is always polite and considerate.The rabbi thinks “politeness” is superficial, and “considerate” simply means to consider the consequences before taking any action, but that true kindness comes at a price. The rabbi believes that true kindness will take insult, inconvenience or injury upon itself in order to save another person from the same.We read of this encounter between the lawyer and the rabbi in the Biblical book of Luke. You may remember the story of a traveler who is robbed, stripped of his clothing, beaten, and left half dead alongside the road.Jesus, the young rabbi, tells the lawyer that two religious people passed by the wounded traveler, but both of them avoided the man. Then, the member of an ethic minority came upon the injured traveler. The most common name for this ethnic minority was a racial slur in the day of Jesus, so to help make his point, Jesus used the racial slur as the name of the man: “a Samaritan.”According to Jesus, “the Samaritan,” at his own expense, took the injured traveler to an inn, treated his wounds, and paid the innkeeper to take care of him.Jesus then asked, “Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?”The lawyer, too polite to say “Samaritan,” said, “The one who had mercy on him.”Jesus said, “Go and do likewise.”Rabbi Jesus was clearly demonstrating that kindness costs the giver, and that it is our actions that define us, not our origins.Disagreements occur when there is a lack of definition of terms. When there is no agreed-upon definition of a word, arguments will revolve around it.I believe the word that has the largest number of conflicting definitions today is the word “Christian.”If we were to poll our nation, we would doubtless discover countless definitions for “Christian,” but I believe most of them would fall somewhere in the middle of a three-cornered continuum.At one extreme of that triangle, a Christian is a believer in Christianity, a religion founded by Jesus, who came to give us a new moral code and teach us a better way to live. This Christian is patriotic and rejects behaviors that he or she believes to be immoral.At the second extreme of that triangle, a Christian is a believer in Jesus as God Incarnate, who came to earth to purchase eternal life for all who would believe. This Christian does not believe that Jesus came to deliver a new moral code, but to die so that we might live.The third extreme of our triangle is a definition occasionally embraced by people who do not identify themselves as “Christian,” because they define a Christian as:a religious person who believes poor people deserve to be poor because “anyone can pull themselves up by their bootstraps through good decisions and hard work.”a religious person who is in favor of guns, but against gays.a religious person who believes Americans are exceptional, and that all other nations are inferior.It is not my purpose today to start an argument, but to defuse one.Christianity and politics are in turmoil today due to the lack of an agreed-upon definition of the word, “Christian.” I have no intention of offering my own definition of Christian, since it is unimportant to anyone but me. And I do not expect your definition of “Christian” to be any of the three extremes I named. I expect you have a complex, nuanced definition that you feel strongly about. You may even be anxious to share it in the hopes of “clearing the air.”Please don’t. AMy only goal today is to ask you to consider – for just a moment –that a good person might hold

I began losing my hair when I was 19. By the time I was 21, I looked like I was 30.Best thing that ever happened to me.People take you seriously when you look like a grown-up, and I needed people to take me seriously.I sold advertising for the smallest radio station in Tulsa, Oklahoma. We were rock-solid at number 23 in a city of 23 radio stations. We had a 0.5 share during the Average Quarter Hour. This means that out of every 200 radios that were turned on, only 1 of them would be tuned to my station.Best thing that ever happened to me.At any given moment, my station would have between 500 and 800 people listening. But the total number of different people we would reach in a week was about 18,000. Woo-Hoo! I was overjoyed. There wasn’t a single business in our city of 1,000,000 people that couldn’t use 18,000 more customers.All I had to do is figure out what to say to get my 18,000 people to remember – and prefer – my advertiser. I cannot say with certainty how I knew success would be found in the crafting of a persuasive message rather than in the selection of the “right” audience, but my memory shows me a young boy sitting in an empty classroom reading books during recess rather than playing with the other kids on the playground.Best thing that ever happened to me.Yes, I know I’ve said “Best thing that ever happened to me” three times and they can’t ALL be the “best thing,” but I don’t feel like ranking them “#1 Best,” “#2 Best,” etc., so go with the flow, okay?I restricted my sales calls to businesses that were so tiny they couldn’t afford any advertising other than my little nothing of a radio station. When these people believed in me and wrote me a check, they were giving me their life’s blood. If my plans for them failed, my clients couldn’t pay the rent. They couldn’t send their kids to school with a sack lunch. They couldn’t pay the electric bill.When you face those kinds of consequences, you lie awake at night figuring out how to make the ads you sold work, because there is no one with whom you can share the blame. It’s all you.Guilt, Pain and Remorse are powerful teachers.I quickly figured out how to make advertising work.And what Guilt, Pain and Remorse taught me was very different from what is being taught in colleges.Few marketing professionals will ever be solely responsible for the outcomes of the ad campaigns they help to create. Most people in my profession go to college, get a degree, and then become a cog in a marketing machine. Their failures can be attributed to a wide variety of forces beyond their control. Their ink pens are never filled with the blood of the families for whom they write.My station owner was hoping our little station might bring in about $11,000 a month. Within 18 months, my personal billings were averaging $51,000 a month. My base pay was $800/mo. and I made a 15% commission. Do the math.I spent my early twenties as a joyously married, rapidly balding boy with ten thousand stories in his head and an ink pen full of blood in his pocket. Then, at 26 years old, they made me the General Manager of a much larger station.Worst thing that ever happened to me.I no longer spent my days talking face-to-face with business owners and crafting stories. Instead, I stared blankly at spreadsheets and spoke by telephone with corporate officers and bookkeepers and listened to the whining of 32 employees who had me confused with their mommies.Six months into it, I said, “You can keep the cheese. Just let me out of the trap.”With the unwavering support of Princess Pennie, I became an independent ad writer and media negotiator. I adapted my stories to fit billboards on the highway and TV ads during the Superbowl and websites on the internet.But some things never change. Thirty-four years after saying “no” to...

A thing cannot exist without its opposite. This is why a positive statement – without its corresponding negative – is usually a platitude.1Every proton has its electron.Every summer has its winter.Every Yin has its Yang.Every up, its down.Every inside, its outside.Every justice, its mercy.“The opposite of a correct statement is a false statement.But the opposite of a profound truth may well be another profound truth.”– Niels BohrNiels Bohr was not a philosopher. He was a scientist who won the Nobel Prize in Physics.Duality, in the form of paired opposites, is essential to high-impact communication.It is not enough to explain what you believe.You need also to explain what you don’t believe.It is not enough to explain what you stand for.You need also to explain what you stand against.I saw you flinch just then. You don’t like “being negative.” Am I right?You believe in abundance.You believe in optimism.You believe in fairness and peace.You sound like a Hallmark greeting card.Now tell me if I’m being “negative.”I stand against poverty.I stand against hopelessness.I stand against bullies.I sound like someone who might actually make a difference.Don’t just tell us what you include.Tell us also what you exclude.Don’t just tell us what you are.Tell us what you are not.“At Kesslers, we do diamonds better, because diamonds are all we do. We don’t sell watches or pearls or gold chains. But we do sell every style of engagement ring that has ever been designed.”“At Goettl Air Conditioning, we do things the right way, not the easy way.”“Jigsaw magnesium is a mineral, not a vitamin. And it delivers real energy, not caffeine energy.”Here’s why photos of you never really look like you:You see your face in the mirror every day. You see photos of yourself only occasionally. But the mirror shows you a reversed image. The “you” that your friends see is opposite the image that you see.If you speak only of what you see from your perspective, you miscommunicate to everyone who sees the opposite.Comprehensive communication always shows both sides:The verse and the inverse.The upside and the down.What’s left in and what’s left out.Do you have the breadth of mind to do this?Do you have the courage?Roy H. Williams

Doubtless, they will someday say, “Inspired by Roycroft and Bohemian Grove, Pennie and Roy Williams built Wizard Academy…”But they will be wrong.Yes, the Princess and I – with the help of hundreds of good friends around the world – began constructing the Wizard Academy campus in 2004. The “wrong” part is that we were inspired by Roycroft and Bohemian Grove.This error is forgivable, however, because jumping to conclusions is what makes us humans so adorable.Elbert Hubbard was a marketer whose magazine, The Philistine, was read by subscribers around the world 120 years ago. Likewise, my Monday Morning Memos and the e-zines of Indiana Beagle are read by subscribers around the world.But Elbert Hubbard did not inspire me to become a marketer or to write these Monday Morning Memos. And I’m pretty sure Indy Beagle wanders the rabbit hole for reasons of his own, as well.Elbert Hubbard published a book on advertising but I did not write my Wizard of Ads trilogy because of him.Elbert and his wife, Alice, began building the Roycroft Campus as a writer’s and artist’s enclave in East Aurora, New York, in 1895. But Pennie had never heard of the Hubbards or their Roycroft Campus when she decided to build Wizard Academy. I know this to be true. I was there.Yet there are definite similarities between our organizations.Wizard Academy bridges the gap between business and the arts. Like the Roycrofters before us, we celebrate the study of the arts for the furtherance of business.*San Francisco’s Bohemian Club began constructing Bohemian Grove in 1878. The “Bohemians” in those days were writers and artists. But business people wanted to hang out with them and were immediately attracted to the club.Oscar Wilde attended The Grove in 1882. Afterwards, he said, “When bankers get together they talk about art. When artists get together, they talk about money.”Think of the annual encampment at Bohemian Grove as the original TED Conference.An invitation to The Grove remains the hardest of all tickets to obtain. Security is incredibly tight. The guests invited to Bohemian Grove today are Nobel Prize winners, top-tier artists and authors, Senators, and Fortune 500 CEOs.Interestingly, Wizard Academy attracts many of these same people, but on a smaller scale.The official motto of The Bohemian Club is a line taken from Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, “Weaving Spiders Come Not Here.” It means, “Business deals and any thoughts of ‘networking’ are to be left outside. This is a place of escape.”Like Bohemian Grove, Wizard Academy is a place of escape, renewal, and inspiration for people who wrestle with giants.Do you have a dream, an enterprise, a mission, a purpose that occupies your heart and hands and mind?Come. You have a tribe. Hang out with us. You will be a stronger wrestler when you leave.Roy H. Williams

Trouble happens to everyone.“Nobody, as long as he moves about among the chaotic currents of life, is without trouble.”– Carl JungBut don’t worry about it.“Worry is the interest paid by those who borrow trouble.”– George WashingtonReally. Don’t worry about it.“Don’t worry about tomorrow. Tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.”– Jesus, in the 6th chapter of Matthew’s Good NewsBecause I’ve got this.“In this world you will have trouble. But be of good cheer! I have overcome the world.”– Jesus, in the 16th chapter of John’s Good NewsAnd I’m your friend.“Friends show their love in times of trouble, not in happiness.”– EuripidesTrouble is a searchlight in the darkness that shows you a person’s heart.“You never forget three people:the person who helped you in trouble,the person who left you in trouble,the person who put you in trouble.”– Randy PhillipsAnd sometimes that searchlight is reflected back at you.“If you could kick the person in the pants responsible for most of your trouble, you wouldn’t sit for a month.”– Theodore RooseveltBut finally, the sun rises, morning comes, and it’s a brand-new day.“Expect trouble as an inevitable part of life and repeat to yourself the most comforting words of all: ‘This, too, shall pass.'”– Ann LandersRoy H. Williams

1. When you need someone to faithfully implement your time-tested policies and procedures, hire a straight-A student.This is what we know about them:A. They bought into the educational system, believed its promises, and played by its rules.B. They have demonstrated obedience, compliance, and conformity.C. They have obvious respect for authority.And these are not bad things.2. When you need to innovate, improvise or reinvent, hire a rascal.1This is what we know about them:A. They mistrust the system, laugh at its promises, and make up their own rules.B. They have demonstrated disobedience, defiance, and abnormity.C. They have obvious respect for alternative thinking.Steve Jobs was a rascal with an unimpressive résumé. When Steve applied for a job at Hewlett-Packard in 1977, they rejected him because he had dropped out of Reed College in 1972.“Quitters never win.” That’s the traditional wisdom. Ask any high school football coach. And Steve Jobs was definitely a quitter.Jan Koum was a bonafide rascal. When he was 20, his ex-girlfriend got a restraining order against him. He later said, “I am ashamed of the way I acted, and ashamed that my behavior forced her to take legal action”.Jan Koum was also a quitter. Facebook refused to hire him in 2008 because he had dropped out of San Jose State. Here’s what was on Jan’s resume for the previous year: “I traveled around South America playing ultimate frisbee.”I can almost see that HR director rolling her eyes, can’t you?In 2009, Jan Koum founded WhatsApp, an innovation he sold to Facebook in 2014 for $9.1 billion.Steve Jobs and Jan Koum are mentioned in the opening paragraph of a 59-page study2 published by two academicians in 2017. That paper is titled Asymmetric Information and Entrepreneurship. Its scholarly authors reached their conclusions only after analyzing 12,686 individuals over a period of more than 30 years.I’ll do my best to summarize those 59 pages:“A person is motivated to start their own business when they have more confidence in their ability than they have in their résumé.” – Roy H. WilliamsThere. I’ve put 59 pages into a single sentence.Perhaps I should become an ad writer.Roy H. Williams1 If no rascals are available, you can substitute a rebel, a rogue, or a renegade.2 Hegde, Deepak and Tumlinson, Justin, Asymmetric Information and Entrepreneurship (May 15, 2017). Available for download at SSRN.

When you need people to respond to your ad immediately, you need to think like a reporter.These are the first two things they teach news reporters:“When a dog bites a man, that is not news, because it happens so often. But if a man bites a dog, that is news.”“You never read about a plane that did not crash.”So why do so many direct-response ads talk about the man who got bit by a dog, or flew on a plane that did not crash? To be successful, direct-response ads must deliver a message that is remarkable.Recruitment Ads are a form of direct-response marketing.Last week, the following 60-second radio ad reached 19 percent of the total population of Charlotte, NC. The average listener heard this message 6.3 times in just 3 days, Wed/Th/Fr. And it cost only seven tenths of a penny per repetition for a listener to hear it. This means that for less than a nickel per person, (6.3 x 7 tenths of a penny) we electrified 19 percent of the total population of Charlotte with a remarkable message. And you know what? The 19 percent we reached are the friends, neighbors and co-workers of the other 81 percent, guaranteed.Are you a plumber? Would you like to make one hundred thousand dollars a year? That’s right. I said a hundred thousand dollars. Can you install new water heaters, faucets and drains? You hear Morris-Jenkins on TV and radio all the time. Morris-Jenkins Plumbing is the sister company of Morris-Jenkins Air Conditioning and they’re both managed by Dewey Jenkins, the man you DEFINITELY want to work for. Our new plumbing division is keeping 30 plumbers busy and we need 10 more who know how to install water heaters, faucets and drains. We need air conditioning installers, too. Many of our A/C installers are already making a hundred thousand, and we’re putting together a plan that will allow our plumbing installers to make that much, too. We want to meet you. This is not a joke. If you’re ready to start the greatest job you’ll ever have, be at Morris-Jenkins headquarters this Saturday Morning at 8AM for a confidential interview. We need 10 plumbers and 6 air conditioning installers. Be here at 8 o’clock this Saturday morning. You’ll find our address at Morris-Jenkins dot com. Your life is about to get a whole lot better. Morris-Jenkins dot com.That’s a pretty remarkable message, right?But just as important as being remarkable, direct-response ads must also be credible and urgent.Remarkable means your message will be repeated from person to person. “$100,000.”Credible means your message is supported by already-known and trusted facts.(A.) Due to their commitment to long-term customer bonding, Morris-Jenkins is universally recognized as the market leader in Charlotte.(B.) Dewey Jenkins is on TV every day and the public LOVES him.(C.) This ad would not have worked nearly so well for a person that was less respected.Urgent means action must be taken immediately, because(A.) the available number is limited, “We need 10 plumbers and 6 A/C installers.” Or,(B.) the window of time is limited. “Be at Morris-Jenkins Headquarters THIS Saturday morning at 8AM for a confidential interview.(C.) Urgency is accelerated through relentless repetition. We ran this ad twice an hour, 24 hours a day, for 3 days, on each of 2 different radio stations. 288 total airings in 3 days.If your direct-response ads aren’t working, there are...

Technically, you don’t take a trip. It takes you.If you could take a trip, you could also put it back when you were done with it.But you can’t.Now that we’ve cleared that up, let’s talk about Robert and Chris and the trip they took.It was a 1968 tripfrom Minneapolis to San Franciscoon a 1964 Honda Superhawkwith Chris riding on the backbecause he was only 11 years old.When that trip was over, Robert remembered a lot of things that never really happened. And in 1974 those memories became Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, the best-selling philosophy book ever written. It stayed near the top of the best-seller lists for more than a decade.I agree with a lot of what Robert wrote.But a little of what he wrote makes me wonder if he was crazy.We’ll talk more about that later.These are the things Robert wrote that I agree with:“You look at where you’re going and where you are and it never makes sense, but then you look back at where you’ve been and a pattern seems to emerge.”“The real purpose of the scientific method is to make sure nature hasn’t misled you into thinking you know something you actually don’t know.”“It’s the sides of the mountain which sustain life, not the top.”“The more you look, the more you see.”“First you get the feeling, then you figure out why.”“We’re in such a hurry most of the time we never get much chance to talk. The result is a kind of endless day-to-day shallowness, a monotony that leaves a person wondering years later where all the time went and sorry that it’s all gone.”“When you live in the shadow of insanity, the appearance of another mind that thinks and talks as yours does is something close to a blessed event.”I like that last statement for 2 reasons. (1.) “The appearance of another mind that thinks and talks as yours does” is sort of why Wizard Academy exists. (2.) Is it just my imagination, or have you noticed that the shadow of insanity (and not the good kind of insanity) seems to be growing wider and darker across our land? I’m seeing and hearing things today that would have been unthinkable 10 years ago.One last quote from the book:“But to tear down a factory or to revolt against a government or to avoid repair of a motorcycle because it is a system is to attack effects rather than causes; and as long as the attack is upon effects only, no change is possible. The true system, the real system, is our present construction of systematic thought itself, rationality itself, and if a factory is torn down but the rationality which produced it is left standing, then that rationality will simply produce another factory. If a revolution destroys a systematic government, but the systematic patterns of thought that produced that government are left intact, then those patterns will repeat themselves in the succeeding government. There’s so much talk about the system. And so little understanding.”I suppose that’s what worries me most about the dark shadow of insanity spreading across our land. If we remove the people who are casting that shadow – but we don’t change the patterns of thought that elevated them – we’ll replace those people with more just like them.I said earlier that we’d talk about Robert being a little bit crazy.Robert Pirsig was treated with electroconvulsive therapy on numerous occasions when he was institutionalized with paranoid schizophrenia and clinical depression between 1961 and 1963. He was 35 when he got out. His son Chris was 6. They began their road trip 5 years later.At its heart, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance is an exploration of the underlying belief systems of Western culture. In his foreword to that book, Robert told readers that despite...

We connect with people who interest us.We have fun with people who know how to have fun.We bond with people who believe what we believe.But our deepest relationships are with people who have shared our pain.Think of the people you can count on – always – to have your back. Chances are, you’ve been through hard times with them at your side.Adversity is a whirlwind that tears friends apart if they don’t hold on to each other, but bonds them tightly together if they do.An acquaintance is someone with whom you can laugh.A friend is someone with whom you can cry.I am not suggesting we celebrate adversity.I am suggesting we celebrate our friends.The seeds of commitment are watered by tears.“Where there is sorrow, there is holy ground.”– Oscar Wilde“The thing about rock’n’roll is that for me anyway it wasn’t enough… There were great catch-phrases and driving pulse rhythms… but the songs weren’t serious or didn’t reflect life in a realistic way. I knew that when I got into folk music, it was more of a serious type of thing. The songs are filled with more despair, more sadness, more triumph, more faith in the supernatural, much deeper feelings.”– Bob Dylan, Divine Madness, p. 166If you want to be persuasive, if you want to convince people, you must abandon the myth that you – or anyone else – is capable of being perfectly objective.We see things not as they are, but as we are.Exactly 4 years and one week ago – during this season of Passover and Easter – I wrote to you about cognitive bias:“You’ve heard it said that, ‘Every person is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts.’ Yet we routinely craft our own facts from the fabric of personal experiences, preferences and prejudices. A stereotype is nothing more than a pattern we’ve observed. This pattern isn’t always predictive, but it is a pattern nonetheless and we trust it. We do this in the misbegotten belief that we have correctly interpreted our past experiences and that our preferences and prejudices are, in fact, correct and reliable interpretations of objective reality.”– The Monday Morning Memo for March 24, 2014Preferences and prejudices cannot be trusted.But pain is neither a preference nor a prejudice. And sorrow is hard to escape. To willfully walk into them for the sake of a friend is the signature of someone who cares.Do you have a friend in crisis?Don’t send flowers.Send yourself.Roy H. WilliamsPS – Don’t assume from today’s memo that the wizard is feeling blue. He’s not. It’s just that he and I know a lot of people who need a hug. I’ll bet you know people, too. – Indy BeaglePPS – Leonardo da Vinci clearly understood cognitive bias. He said, “The greatest deception men suffer is from their own opinions.”

The traditional aristocracy of inherited wealth, position and influence is a false one, in my mind.You were born into an influential family. You went to the right kindergarten, the right grade school, the right college, and you party with the right people. You invented the phrase and the wink, “It’s not what you know, it’s who you know.”You are a house cat.You think desperation is an enemy that should be avoided at all costs. But who else can you turn to when you need to clear your mind, focus your thoughts, summon your courage, and unleash your creativity?Desperation will do all of this for you, and more.Desperation is the friend and the ally of every alley cat.Desperation is the mark of every true entrepreneur.Have I angered you? I’m sorry. That wasn’t my intention. I was just hoping to encourage those friends who are facing deadly peril, whose options are limited, whose bank accounts are depleted, whose backs are against the wall.That’s never been you? Oh… now I see why you’re angry.You’ve never really had an adventure.In 1992, I helped a friend launch a company that he later sold for $68 million. I can still remember several occasions when his circumstances became so painful that he said he wanted to “curl up in the fetal position.”A few years later, I helped a friend who is brilliant, disciplined, and highly organized. He sees situations clearly and has remarkable judgment. When his company sold for $125 million, I pointed these traits out to him as the reasons his company had thrived. He looked at me very sincerely and without a trace of humor shook his head and said, “No, it was desperation.”“I have often fallen into a doom loop, convinced that I was about to lose everything.” These are the words of a friend whose company revenues are rapidly approaching $1 billion a year.One friend whose net worth is currently more than $2.5 billion speaks of a time 20 years ago when cash was so tight that, “I lived in a tent with my wife and children in the back of our little shop.”These are only 4 of the 400 true entrepreneurs I have known.I’ve never met a self-made person who didn’t have stories of desperation.Stress and trouble are the unmistakable signs of adventure.No stress?No trouble?No adventure.“When we’re safe at home we wish we were having an adventure. But when we’re having an adventure, we wish we were safe at home.”– Thornton WilderDon Quixote saw beauty in Dulcinea when everyone else saw commonness, so he decided to be her champion. And because he was tired of being safe at home, he went looking for adventure. The balance of his epic book are the tales of his battles: his victories and his defeats, his parades and his embarrassments, his glistening moments of accomplishment and his painful regrets. Quixote challenged lions, fought giants, and struggled with adversaries on every side.“And I know if I’ll only be trueTo this glorious quest,That my heart will lie peaceful and calmWhen I’m laid to my rest.”“And the world will be better for this;That one man, scorned and covered with scars,Still strove with his last ounce of courageTo reach the unreachable star.” 1“Scorned and covered with scars…” describes every true entrepreneur.People often ask why I am attracted to Don Quixote. Here is my answer:Don Quixote was a house catwho decided to becomean alley cat.Roy H. Williams