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Branding
12 Unexpected Ways to Build The Most Powerful Brand
Every form of communication is composed of 12 basic ideas and each of these ideas, held singularly, is a separate channel of communication in the mind.
Every form of communication is composed of 12 basic ideas and each of these ideas, held singularly, is a separate channel of communication in the mind. Like a jet lifting off the runway, these 12 concepts will accelerate and elevate your creative expression: speaking, writing, drawing, painting, persuading, acting, photography, sculpting, selling, singing, landscaping, interior decorating, inventing, filmmaking, engineering, and making music. If I left out your favorite form of expression, just add it to the bottom of the list as you point the nose of your jet toward the sky. Everything can be explained using these 12 languages of the mind, and each of the 12 can be expounded and expanded by the others. Let us begin by defining a couple of terms. Perception: a conscious awareness of a sensation and interpretation of sensations. Communication: a successful transfer of perceptions to another person.
The impact of your communication is determined by your mastery of these 12 languages:
1. Numbers are a language of the mind. Math is easier to learn when you think of it as a language. There are things that can be communicated in the language of numbers that can be said in no other language.
2. Color is a language of the mind. Look at a color wheel. Pink and burgundy agree with red, but that entire family of color is contradicted by green. Add white to a color and you get a tint. Add black and you get a shade. Add grey and you get a tone. Colors, tints, shades, and tones communicate moods and attitudes. Color can be saturated to intensify – or desaturated to drain – a feeling.
3. Phonemes are a language of the mind. Every spoken language is made of a specific number of sounds, and alphabets are constructed to represent those sounds. English is composed of 44 phonemes. The vowels of a language are its musical notes.1 The “stops” in English are the sounds represented by p, b, d, t, k, g. (Make those sounds in your mind; not the names of the letters, but the sounds the letters represent.) There are also labial, dental, fricative, and palatal phonemes. Obstruent phonemes give words a hard-edged, angular feel, like “taketa.” Sonorant phonemes give words a softer, feminine feel, like “naluma.”
4. Radiance is a language of the mind. Outward radiance is energy expanding. Inward radiance is energy contracting. Hot and cold. Love and indifference. Dark and light. Dim light and shadows are sonorant. Bright light is obstruent. Likewise, pianissimo-soft is sonorant. Forte-loud is obstruent.
5. Shape is a language of the mind. Angles are the obstruent phonemes of shape. Curves are sonorant.
6. Proximity is a language of the mind. It speaks of the relationship of one thing to another. Large and small. Here and there. Left and right. Up and down. High and low. Near and far. Ahead or behind. Backward or forward. Absent or present. Complete or incomplete. Perspective, or angle of view, is another expression of proximity. Brother, sister, father, mother, cousin, co-worker, and boss are words that describe relationship; a proximity measured in a “distance” that cannot be expressed in inches, feet, or miles.2
7. Motion is a language of the mind. Fast and slow. Curved or angular (shapes of motion). Coming or going (proximity of motion.)
8. Taste is a language of the mind. As a biological tool for identifying chemicals dissolved in liquids, the perceptions of the tongue give us a vocabulary that can easily be assigned to non-chemical perceptions, allowing flavor to be used as a metaphor for a wondrous number of other things. “She is a sweet girl, but her father is a bitter old man.”
9. Smell is a language of the mind. Smell is a tool for identifying chemicals dissolved in air, so the perceptions of the nose provide us with another vocabulary that can easily be assigned to non-chemical perceptions. “The judge’s ruling in that case stinks like 9 day-old fish.”
10. Feel is a language of the mind. Rough and smooth. Dry and wet. Painful and pleasant. Relaxed and tense. Outstretched and cramped. Extended and contracted. The words that describe skin and muscular sensations – pain, pressure, position, movement, and temperature – can be used to describe emotional states as well. Or anything else you want to aim them at.
11. Symbol is a language of the mind. Symbols have specific meanings. Facial expressions and body language are symbols. A stop sign is a symbol. An exclamation point is a symbol. A smiley face is a symbol. Each letter of the alphabet is a symbol for a phoneme. And every ritual – communion, baptism, the dubbing of a knight by the king – is a symbol combined with motion, another language of the mind.
12. Music is a language of the mind. Music is any sound that carries meaning. The sound of a jet. A dog’s bark. A slither in the grass. A baby’s cry. What we typically think of as music is composed of 1. Pitch (proximity: high and low), 2. Key (shape of sound), 3. Tempo (speed of motion), 4. Rhythm (shape of motion), 5. Musical Interval (proximity: near and far, how wide are the gaps between notes?), and 6. Musical Contour (shape of the melody line). The volume of music is an expression of its radiance. This is an example of what I meant when I said, “each of the 12 can be expounded and expanded by the others.”Perception is deepened when two or more languages agree, creating concept reinforcement. (Such as dim light combined with slow music in a minor key.) But too much agreement creates a cliche.
Attention is elevated when a language disagrees and contradicts another, creating an interesting anomaly. (Such as a spotted cow that is hot pink and lime green) But too much disagreement creates confusion. (By the way, did you notice how “pink” was modified by radiance – hot – and “green” was modified by the symbol of a lime?) 3Today’s introduction to the 12 languages of the mind was not meant to be exhaustive or comprehensive. It was merely the cracking open of the door to a forgotten room, an invitation to explore an undiscovered country, a glimpse at the gleaming gold molars of a yawning dawn. Wasn’t that a colorful way to say, “the beginning of a brand new day?”Just playing :)PS – “The 12 Languages of The Mind” is a pet theory of mine. Consequently, you won’t be able to find any additional information about this concept online, although you will be able to confirm everything I’ve shared about the 12 languages if you investigate each of them singularly. NOTE: “obstruent” and “sonorant” are technically associated only with phonemes, but I took the liberty of applying these descriptions to other channels of communication. – RHW1 According to Duke University’s Deborah Ross, musical intervals reflect the sounds of our own speech, and are hidden in the vowels we use. Musical scales ‘sound right’ because they match the frequency ratios that our brains are primed to detect. Her research indicated that this phenomenon is not limited to the English language. The musical scale of China is a reflection of the vowels in Mandarin. Ever wonder about the musical scale of India?2 When proximity describes a non-spatial reality, such as a philosophical, emotional or perceptual reality, it’s called “shadow proximity.” Likewise, in #4, love and indifference are examples of “shadow radiance,” and in #8, “sweet” girl and “bitter” old man are examples of “shadow taste.” And in #9, a judge’s ruling that “stinks” like 9 day-old fish is an example of “shadow smell.” Optimism and pessimism are additional examples of “shadow radiance.” Does it surprise you that we use the words of objective, physical reality to explain subjective, perceptual reality? Each of the 12 languages has a shadow.
Advertising
The Tale of Ted the Radio Tortoise and Harry the Anxious Hare
Some people believe in mass media while others believe in digital advertising. What kind of advertising do you invest in?
I recently spent a day with two Contractors who own HVAC companies. We’ll call them Harry and Ted. They live on opposite sides of the country. They met in a Facebook Group for Home Service Companies and became friends.
Ted has read our Wizard of Ads™ books and follows our blog, and decided to go fishing for customers with a net. He put his money in radio.
Smart-sounding digital marketers convinced Harry it would make more sense to target only those people in immediate need of HVAC services. Harry went fishing with a hook called Pay-Per-Click.
Harry said, “Ted, you’re hunting with a shotgun. I’m hunting with a rifle.” Harry believes in targeting, you see. That’s why he fishes with a hook and catches just one fish at a time. But you don’t build a widespread reputation by waiting until your customer needs you and then targeting them through Search Engine Optimization and Pay-Per-Click.
Ted the Radio Tortoise chose to win the public before they needed his services. Ted the Radio Tortoise wanted everyone in the city to know about him, even if many of them would never need his services. Ted the Radio Tortoise chose to win the hearts of the people 52 weeks a year.
Harry the Anxious Hare, by the way, services a trade area 22 times the potential of the area served by Ted the Radio Tortoise.
Both men are smart and aggressive. They plunged. Hard.
Harry the Anxious Hare spends $60,000 per month on Search Engine Optimization, Digital Marketers, and locally targeted Pay-Per-Click. His annual ad budget of $760,000 brings in slightly less than $4 million per year in revenue, leaving Harry the Anxious Hare with a little less than $3.24 million for gas money. Not bad.
One year ago, Ted the Radio Tortoise was spending $20,000 per month on radio. His $240,000 ad budget brought in just over $2 million in revenue, leaving Ted the Radio Tortoise with a little more than $1.76 million to spend on lunch.
NOTE: Ted the Radio Tortoise brought in 1/2 as much money but spent only 1/3 as much on ads.
And then Ted the Radio Tortoise asked us to begin writing his ads. This year we brought in $5.2 million with a $30,000 per month ad budget.
About 6 weeks ago, Ted the Radio Tortoise said he wanted me to add another $20,000 per month to his radio budget. I said, “Not yet. First, we need to improve your close rate.”
“But we’re closing 30 percent of the people who call us,” answered Ted the Radio Tortoise, “Harry the Anxious Hare is closing barely 10 percent of his online leads.”
“Ted”, I said. My Partner Roy always told me, “When you advertise 52 weeks a year on the radio at the proper frequency and reach, with the right message, you become a household name. Yours is the name the customer thinks of first and feels the best about. The leads brought in through radio are much warmer than the leads generated through pay-per-click.”
“I believe your close rate should be around 60 percent. Bring all the people who answer your phone to Austin for a day of training”, I said.
Ted the Radio Tortoise brought them to Austin for a day. They listened. They learned.
At the end of the day, Ted the Radio Tortoise drove his people to the airport and sent them home to answer the phones. Ted the Radio Tortoise then returned to my office with his buddy, Harry the Anxious Hare. As a favor to Ted the Radio Tortoise, I spent a couple of hours with Harry the Anxious Hare. Harry the Anxious Hare, of course, only wanted to know “how to choose the right radio station.”
Harry the Anxious Hare still believes that “targeting the right customer” is the secret to growing a business, and he’s right...that is, until he’s not (growing, that is).
But Ted the Radio Tortoise and I believe in building a widespread reputation with a warm predisposition in the hearts of the general, untargeted public.
What do you believe?
Common sense says targeting would be more efficient, right?
Our thirty-five years of experience say otherwise.
One last thing:
Ted the Radio Tortoise’s telephone team is now closing more than 60 percent of all incoming leads. Ted the Radio Tortoise will likely do $8.4 million in 2021 with no increase in ad budget. Up next, we are teaching his techs how to double their average sale.
Buckle up, Ted the Radio Tortoise. Things are about to get very interesting.
Written and edited together with Roy H. Williams.
Advertising
7 Shrewd Reasons NOT To Hire Your Local Advertising Agency
Reason #1: They are only too happy to work for your competitors. Reason 2: They don’t know how to advertise your ugly duckling business...
- Degrees and exceptions exist
- Your mileage may vary
- Not ALL local agencies are like that
- Maybe the advertising you’re looking for is right in the sweet spot for what a local ad firm does and it’ll be a match made in heaven.
And so forth.
That said, the following generalities ARE generally true, at least in the experience of this writer and many of my Wizard of Ads colleagues. Ultimately, though, the list is an aid to your own perceptions and judgments. Take what’s useful and ignore the rest. ‘Cause I’m betting much of it will be useful if you find yourself in need of a marketing expert. So let’s drill down on each reason that a local ad agency might not be for you.
Reason #1: They Are Only Too Happy To Work For Your Competitors
For most industries and towns, the sum total of business done in any year is static. There is no rising tide lifting all boats. That means you can’t grow without increasing your market share — i.e., taking business from a competitor. So when engaging a local agency, your natural expectation is that you’re hiring them to help you beat the competition at winning over customers. Meaning they should be on your team and your team alone.
But most agencies are only too happy to work with as many companies within the same industry as will hire them.
Sure, they might give each business a different creative team and assure you of “creative firewalls.” More likely, though, they’ll tell you that “there’s enough business for everyone.” Or, “we’re just singing your praises, not tearing down anyone else.” As if comparative advertising was some insane idea that no one in their right mind would ever attempt.
It’s all bullshit.
I mean, they might believe that stuff themselves, but that just reveals their real goal in this situation. They only want to make good-looking, “creative” ads that everyone will like, rather than ads that would sway someone to choose you over the competition. Because if they were really interested in the latter, then there’d be no ethical way to work with you and a competitor at the same time.
So let’s get real.
The only reason a local agency would take your competitors on as clients is because it’s more commission for them and to hell with you.
If you’re OK with that, then fine.
If not, you might re-think hiring a local agency.
Reason 2: They Don’t Know How to Advertise Ugly Duckling Businesses
The thing about most creatives is they went to ad school hoping to someday sell national brands and “sexy” products.
That’s what they studied: how to sell packaged goods, cars, fashion, sporting goods, booze, etc. Assuming, of course, that they’re even interested in selling, rather than just creative showboating. The unifying element for the products most creatives want to advertise is they are almost all purchased from an internal trigger, which is to say through desire. This is an entirely different ballgame than products bought from an external trigger, I.E., “grudge purchases.”
Nobody wants to hire a moving company or call a plumber for emergency repair. Nor can you convince somebody to hire a moving company if an external event hasn’t forced them into needing one. In other words, you can’t sell a moving service like it’s a pizza or an iPhone. It’s why so much of the standard advertising advice like “Unique Selling Propositions” just aren’t applicable for these Ugly Duckling type businesses. After all, does anybody want a “unique” plumber? It certainly wasn’t anywhere on my list of considerations on the few occasions I’ve had to call one. Now, if you’re a retailer selling sexy or exciting products, maybe this reason for not selecting a local agency isn’t relevant for you. But if you’re a home service or Ugly Duckling Business, it should be a major concern. You don’t want your agency trying to sell furnaces like they were Porsches, do you?
Reason #3: They’ll Skip Over Strategy and Jump to Messaging
Frankly, making ads should be the last thing any competent agency does.
If they don’t spend a day and a half or more doing uncovery and studying your competitive landscape, they’re skipping the most important part. They should be working with you to match messaging strategy to business strategy. Not to mention working to tailor your ads to promise the stuff your company can’t help but deliver.
But most of the time local agencies won’t do that. At least the creative team producing your ads won’t. Maybe the account manager will do some pro-forma exercises with you to “get to know you” but that’ll all be boiled down to bullet points in a brief that the creative team will use to, essentially, “phone it in.”
Creatives tend to think that creativity is always the answer, without bothering to formulate a coherent messaging strategy first. Of course, the better and more experienced your ad team, the more likely they are to have learned NOT to phone it in with their messaging strategy. But that brings up another reason local agencies might not be your best bet…
Reason #4: You Probably Won’t Get Their Best
If you’re not one of the agency’s larger clients, with a large ad budget, and therefore a large commission for the agency, then you’ll likely get handed off to a junior creative team. Sure, the owner and head of creative might sell you, but they won’t actually handle your advertising. Now, if you wanted to take a chance on a junior creative team, that’s great. Just keep in mind you’re not going to pay any less for it, and the agency should be upfront about who is actually producing your ads.
This is why it’s not uncommon for a company to hire a local agency because of the great ads they saw in initial meetings, only to fire that agency down the road because what was produced for them didn’t live up to the earlier examples Then again, maybe you’re big enough to get assigned senior people. Great. Just be sure to verify who you’re actually hiring.
Reason 5: Their Pride Will Undermine Your Success
Pride goeth before the fall. But it doesn’t necessarily have to be your pride. And when it comes to ad agencies, their pride contributes to your fall through lack of frequency in your ad buys. First, the creative team’s pride deludes them into thinking that their ad (or campaign) is sooooo creative and powerful, it won’t need much repetition. Which is bunk. I’m not saying this never happens, but… well this pretty much never happens.
In all of advertising, there are a bare handful of ads that had a huge impact from a single showing:
- Cadillac’s “The Penalty of Leadership.”
- LBJ’s “Daisy” commercial.
- Masterlock’s Sharpshooter Super Bowl Commercial.
- Reagan’s “Morning in America”
- Apple’s 1984 Super Bowl Ad.
And that’s 5 ads in a century’s worth of advertising.
You really think your ad for, I don’t know, roofing is going to make that list? Even great campaigns require repetition over time to sink in, to be remembered, and to have a persuasive impact. And that’s where most agencies screw up. Because they almost always buy too much reach and not enough frequency. As already mentioned, the creative will delude himself into thinking his “brilliant” ads will work with mere exposure. And the media buyer will be all too eager to brag about how many people he’s reaching with your budget to push for adequate frequency. Cause if he sacrifices frequency for reach, he can brag about a number that you, the client, will understand instinctively.
“Look at all the prospective customers we’re reaching!”
Frequency, on the other hand, requires some explaining. Plus buying a schedule with sufficient frequency is more expensive and harder to negotiate. And doing so on a limited budget requires more modest reach, which makes the buy look smaller. So the only people who care about adequate frequency are people who are actually measuring, tracking, and being paid for the effectiveness of their work But since that’s not the case for most local agencies (see Reason #7 for more on this), then both the creative’s pride and the media buyer’s pride will push for reach over frequency. And reaching too many people too few times is a recipe for masses of half-persuaded people and half-assed results.
Reason #6: Local Agencies Are NOT Media Agnostic
When it comes to choosing media, an agency should choose based solely on effectiveness and efficiency. How to get you the most bang for your hard-earned buck.
But they generally don’t. They tend to choose based on:
- Which media they prefer working with
- Which media is most likely to garner awards, and
- Which media they have the most “buddies” at.
And what media do they prefer working with?
Chances are, it’ll be visual media — print magazines, billboards, digital display ads, and TV. You know what media they rarely ever think about? Radio and Direct Mail.
They’re not sexy.
And their creatives aren’t trained to work in those media. The modern creative agency was born when Bill Bernbach put the copywriter in the same office as the art director to get maximum synergy between image and words. So those creative teams spend all of their time thinking in those terms. They don’t think in terms of sound effects and dialogue, aka theatre of the mind. And, yet, for most local companies, radio is by far the most efficient mass media going. Compared to TV, radio is:
- Shockingly underpriced.
- Easy and inexpensive to get high frequency.
- Orders of magnitude cheaper for production costs.
Then there’s Direct Mail, which is often considered an advertising ghetto by creative agencies. Most even have to outsource it if they do consider it. And because Direct Mail is the pay-for-performance media par excellence, most agency creatives are less than enthused about throwing their hats into that ring. So chances are you’ll either be shoved into print advertising via a local magazine that likely won’t move the needle. Or talked into very expensive TV advertising and production that your budget can’t adequately support. All while radio (or other less-sexy media) might have been a much better bet for your company.
Reason #7: They’re NOT Pay-For-Performance Oriented
Traditional advertising agencies — including most local agencies — base their pay off of your ad budget, typically by slicing off a 15% cut of your total ad spend, (before further padding that with mark-ups from production expenses and the like).
But their pay isn’t directly tied to either your growth or the performance of their ads.
In fact, if you asked them to provide you with an average growth rate for their client list, they couldn’t provide it to you.
And as the saying goes, you can’t manage what you don’t measure.
If you’re intensely interested in creating effective ads, you’ll be measuring their impact in top line sales.
Any firm that doesn’t do that is a firm that’s probably not nearly as interested in their advertisings’ effectiveness as they claim.
Not All Local Agencies Are Like That — But Most Are
So I spent this article taking the piss out of local agencies. And not because I have some vendetta against them. But because much of what’s wrong with them (IMO) helps to clarify what Wizard of Ads stands against, as well as what we stand FOR.
In brief, we stand for:
- Accountable brand-based advertising focused on increased market share for our clients.
- Which means we stand for only working with one company in a given industry within a given town or service area. We work for you and you alone.
- Advertising that works for the vast majority of local small businesses, many of whom are “Ugly Duckling” (aka un-sexy) businesses.
- Business strategy first, messaging strategy second, and writing the ads last.
- Taking a media-agnostic approach to spending our client’s money.
- We believe that it’s the message that makes the media work and not the other way around.
- Convincing 10 people 100% of the way always beats convincing 100 people 10% of the way. The first method yields 10 new customers. The second yields nothing but wasted ad budget.
So… if you’re a not-yet-huge company in a non-sexy-business category that would prefer to work with an ad team that’s exclusive to them on a pay-per-performance basis, might I suggest that you put the Wizard of Ads partners on your shortlist?
Might I even be so bold as to suggest you reach out to me for a conversation about that shortlist?
Advertising
How Amazing Recruitment Ads Get You Way More Than You Bargained For
Proactive recruitment ads placed in mass media do what great branding ads do, but now you are attracting two different kinds of prospects.
"Amazing Recruitment Ads" — sounds like hype, right?It’s not. It’s simply saying that amazing recruiting ads will deliver more than just great employment candidates. Here’s what I mean:A good branding ad will always be crafted to speak to the vast majority of the audience who are not currently in the market for a given product or service. So great copywriters tattoo on their brains that they’re really talking to people who must be seduced and entertained.“Disinterested bystanders” that might be turned into an attentive audience — IF and ONLY IF — the ad is truly unignorable. Believe me, one writes differently with that goal in mind.
What About Branding Ads that “Make An Offer”?
This remains the case even if the branding ad in question presents some kind of evergreen offer to the public. Yes, every Geico commercial promises that _“15 minutes could save you 15% on car insurance.”_But those commercials are NOT direct response ads.
They’re entertaining branding ads meant to burn that offer into your brain for the next time you pay your insurance and think you’re paying too much. Hence the need for the caveman and the gecko and all the other funny schtick that Geico ads are famous for.
Why Recruiting Ads Take This to an Extreme
Recruiting Ads are an extreme version of this dynamic. If the percentage of the audience looking to buy a new car is small, think about how much smaller it is for, say, plumbers interested in a new job?Now, the audience is larger than just potential job applicants. You’re also trying to reach the extended social network of all those plumbers (or HVAC techs or Customer Service Reps, etc.)‘Cause if you reach and persuade a candidate’s spouse, parents, friends, then your message for a great job opportunity will get passed along. Still, your ad’s actual offer will only be relevant to an astonishingly small percentage of the listener or viewership. So do you waste your opportunity to talk to the 98%+ of the audience who can’t take you up on your offer?Hell, no. That would be monumentally stupid. You have to craft an ad that will be entertaining and persuasive to the vast majority of the audience who aren’t interested in your job offer. That’s what makes it an example of extreme branding. Here’s an example of what that would sound like:
Miller’s Radio Ad
[audio mp3="https://wizardofads.contractors/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/Millers-60-Do-It-Right-Installers-041421.mp3"][/audio]
A Unique Opportunity
There’s one more reason why recruiting ads are “amazing.”Those indifferent bystanders won’t know or even suspect that the recruitment spot they think that they’re “overhearing” wasn’t actually written directly to and for them.
Somewhere in their minds, they subconsciously feel as if they’re eavesdropping on a conversation between the company and the prospective candidate. And that provides the copywriter with a unique opportunity. He can use the recruiting spot to sneak messages into the minds of eavesdroppers that might have “bounced off” of skepticism had they appeared in a “regular” ad. And, yes, this phenomenon can also be used in reverse — directly speaking to the audience at large in order to sneak messages into prospective employees’ minds. That “reverse technique” sounds like this:
Griffin Radio Ad
[audio mp3="https://wizardofads.contractors/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/Grffin-Service-Sixty-Radio-with-Beep.mp3"][/audio]
The Proof Is In the Pudding
But how do I know this is true?How do I know recruiting ads can actually drive branding results with customers?I know because I’ve recently had two different clients tell me about major sales they picked up from customers who came to them specifically and self-admittedly because of a recruiting spot we ran for them. They even quoted the spot back to the owners when talking about why they bought from them. Here’s a screenshot of a recent text message with one client saying exactly that:
And these kinds of results aren’t unusual for our recruiting spots.
What’s In YOUR Recruiting Ads?
Yes, a well-done, mass media recruiting spot can powerfully attract the right employees to your company,But when written properly, a recruiting ad can also attract customers to you even more powerfully. And that’s amazing!More importantly, if your recruitment spots aren’t being done like this, then your regular branding spots are probably falling short as well. Because one is just a more extreme version of the other. If you find that idea a point of concern (or an opportunity for improvement), you might consider hiring us.
Lead Generation
How To Advertise An Offer To Get More Of The Good Leads
If you’re putting a special offer out there, do the things that make offers work, remembering the keyword in “Special Offer” is SPECIAL.
Vagaries and loopholes are the enemy. Specifics and clarity are your best friends. If you’re putting a special offer out there, do the things that **make offers work.**Do it remembering the key word in “Special Offer” is SPECIAL.
Do it with eyes wide open, knowing your customer is going to be skeptical.
Here’s a handy guide:
Urgency: You’re trying to move product now. A deadline gets people off the fence if they truly believe the offer will expire soon. If your big sale lasts “for the whole month of May,” you’re not being urgent. You’re being lazy. Make your sale for “one week only.” Even better: This weekend only. Even better-better: _24 hours only._Scarcity: With urgency, comes its close cousin scarcity. “Only the first 27 customers get this offer.” Or: “We only have 18 of these”.Specifics: Be deadly specific. “For one day only, all green sweaters in the women’s department will be $34.” That may sound ridiculous, but it is much clearer than just saying “everything is 15% off.”Price: Lay it out there, and demonstrate why this is such a good offer. If you give a percentage off, anchor a price to it so the customer has a reference point. “Save 15% off a $5,000 water heater.” Even better…don’t make your customers do math. It’s rude. “Diamond earrings, regularly $99 now just $55.”
Specifics win. Generalities fail.
Reason: Have a legitimate reason for this sale. President Lincoln was a helluva guy, but what does he have to do with mattresses? Tell me you have a believable reason you’re putting these on sale, otherwise, it’s just another sale .No Loopholes: Don’t make people say a “magic phrase.” Don’t make exceptions; if you’re having a toothbrush sale…put every toothbrush on sale. No limits. If somebody wants to buy every toothbrush you have, sell all of them (it’s the whole reason you’re doing this).Special: Special things are infrequent. Special things don’t happen every weekend. Special things are things that haven’t been done before. Big or Bust: If you’re doing this, make it big. Make the offer so ridiculous that a customer would have to be an idiot to pass it up. Go all the way to the wall…then go over the wall. If it doesn’t startle your competitors, you haven’t gone big enough. This goes for your advertising, too. Be prepared to buy 15 times as much advertising you normally would. I should be choking on your ad in the days leading up to your big sale.
Believable: Your customer is skeptical. If “believability” were a 0 to 10 scale, you’d be in negative numbers before you start. You didn’t do anything wrong, it’s just that generations of hucksters got here before you did. People have been baited and switched. Everybody has bought something “on sale,” only to find out it was artificially marked up. If you’re reading this guide and saying, “There’s no way I could do all of those things, I’ll go broke!” …maybe you should listen to that little voice. Maybe you should avoid special offers as much as possible…unless you can make it really special. Maybe the cost outweighs the benefits. The lost profits and high ad costs are hard to overcome with volume. Don’t get me wrong – there are plenty of reasons to have a special sale.
- Grand Opening
- Significant business anniversaries
- Holidays…where people buy presents (sorry Abe)
- Moving to a new location
OK, maybe not “plenty of reasons.” But that’s really the point. If you’re going to do it, make the earthquake. Now, you are sending the message that you’re willing to do business at a lower price. Meanwhile, Apple, Tiffany’s, Chanel, and Trader Joe’s never have a sale. It’s a part of the invisible reason we view those brands as superior. If you can’t do it big, and do it right…maybe you shouldn’t.
Entrepreneurship
Expect This 11th Hour Sneak Attack When Selling Your Home Service Company
Multibillion-dollar investment funds are now bidding to buy successful home service companies at record-setting prices...
Photo by Sachin Rai of India, winner of the 2013 Wildlife Photographer of the Year Award
“Does it surprise you that the multibillion-dollar investment funds that used to buy manufacturing companies and mortgages are now bidding to buy successful home service companies at record-setting prices?”
Immediately following my publishing of that comment, a client of my partner Ryan Chute asked him for any insights he might be able to provide about the Private Equity firms that were trying to buy his business. Another Wizard of Ads partner, Stephen Semple, has worked with almost 100 business owners who sold their businesses. Here is what Steve told Ryan: “There are three problems I’ve seen over and over. The first problem is that there is a due diligence clause in every sales contract that professional business buyers regularly use to lower the price. Here is how it works: the closing is scheduled for Friday afternoon (yes, almost always a Friday.) At noon on Friday the buyer drops the price. They tell you they have come across something that says the price is now 20-30% lower.” “These business buyers are banking on the owner having already sold the company in his heart. The champagne is on ice and the owner is not emotionally capable of walking away from the closing table. To fight this, the seller needs to remain ready to walk. Walking away is the only power the seller has.” “The second problem I have seen is this: selling a business is a slow process and the closer it gets to the closing of the sale, the more the business owner mentally and emotionally disconnects from the business. They stop investing in the business, stop growing it. This is a dangerous thing to do because if the sale falls through, they have to get the momentum going again.” “The third problem is that most business owners don’t actually know what their business is worth. Knowledge is power, and you desperately need the power of knowledge when you are preparing to sell your business.” “Ryan, my best advice is that you tell your client to run their business like they are planning to own it for the next 20 years. Remind them that their business isn’t actually sold until the check is cashed.” Ted Rogers owned a cable TV company. When a buyer came along, Ted negotiated the price to be based on the number of subscribers he transferred to the buyer on closing day. Ted was now prepared to spend more per subscriber to acquire new subscribers than he had ever spent before. He ran promotions and offered bonuses to drive up his subscriber count. The buyer was now motivated to close the sale quickly because the price was going up every hour. The technique that Ted Rogers employed can be used by any seller of any business. All you have to do is base the sales price on a metric that is within your control, not the buyer’s control. It can be top-line sales in a rolling 12-month window, or gross profits in a rolling 12-month window, or you can negotiate the closing price to be adjusted up-or-down by the same percentage the company has grown or declined during the due diligence window. Pick a metric that you control. And then start growing your business as you’ve never grown it before. By remaining fully engaged in your business, you have now stripped the buyer of his power to ambush you at the closing table. And then, when the deal is done, come to Wizard Academy and tell us your story and we’ll help you celebrate.
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Frequently asked questions
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Why Wizard of Ads®?
Are you ready to transform your business into a distinctive, emotionally resonant brand? Here's why hiring Ryan Chute and Wizard of Ads® Services is the game-changer your business needs:
Distinctiveness Beyond Difference: Your brand must be distinctive, not just different, to stand out. We specialize in creating emotional connections with your customers to make your brand unforgettable.
Building Real Estate in the Mind: Branding with us helps your customers remember your brand when they need your service again, creating a lasting impression.
Value Proposition Integration: We ensure that your brand communicates a compelling value proposition that resonates with your audience, creating a powerful brand strategy.
Who Should Work with The Wizard of Ads®?
Wizard of Ads® offers services that start with understanding your marketing challenges.
We specialize in crafting authentic and disruptive brand stories and help build trust and familiarity with your audience. By partnering with Wizard of Ads®, you can transform your brand into one people remember and prefer. We understand the power of authentic storytelling and the importance of trust.
Let us elevate your marketing strategy with our authentic storytelling and brand-building experts. We can take your brand to the next level.
What Do The Wizard of Ads® Actually Do?
Maximize Your Marketing Impact with Strategic Alignment.
Our strategy drives everything we do, dictating the creative direction and channels we use to elevate your brand. Leveraging our national buying power, we ensure you get the best media rates for maximum market leverage. Once your plan is in motion, we refine our strategy to align all channels—from customer service representatives to digital marketing, lead generation, and sales.
Our goal is consistency: we ensure everyone in your organization is on the same page, delivering a unified message that resonates with your audience. Experience the power of strategic alignment and watch your brand thrive.
What can I expect working with The Wizard of Ads®?
Transform Your Brand with Our Proven Process.
Once we sign the agreement, we visit on-site to uncover your authentic story, strengths, and limitations. Our goal is to highlight what sets you 600 feet above the competition. We'll help you determine your budgets and plan your mass media strategy, negotiating the best rates on your behalf.
Meanwhile, our creative team crafts a durable, long-lasting campaign designed to move your brand beyond mere name recognition and into the realm of household names. With an approved plan, we dive into implementation, producing high-quality content and aligning your channels to ensure your media is delivered effectively. Watch your brand soar with our comprehensive, strategic approach.
What Does A Brand-Foward Strategy Do?
The Power of Strategic Marketing Investments
Are you hungry for growth? We explain why a robust marketing budget is essential for exponential success. Many clients start with an 8-12% marketing budget, eventually reducing it to 3-5% as we optimize their marketing investments.
While it takes time to build momentum, you'll be celebrating significant milestones within two years. By the three to five-year mark, you'll see dramatic returns on investment, with substantial gains in net profit and revenue. Discover how strategic branding leads to compound growth and lasting value. Join us on this journey to transform your business.
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