Gratuitous sorcery and incantations from actual Wizards.

There are three key revenue stages for engagement with the Wizard of Ads® for Essential Services

1. Under $2.4 million in revenue
2. Between $2.5 and $20 million in revenue
3. Over $20 million in revenue

Under $2.4 million in revenue, think of Wizards as an investment in your brand. This will serve you well in establishing your brand story early on and help you with your name, logo, and truck wrap design. It's easier to create pictures from a story than it is to make a story based on pre-drawn pictures. You'll be glad you did. Everyone on a fast path to growth is.

Most clients start with Wizard of Ads® for Essential Services  between $2.5 and $20 million in revenue. They have often seen a natural ceiling with their leads for demand service and are looking for ways to push past the ceiling. This can only be done with a properly executed brand strategy, specifically in mass media with a sticky story.

Over $20 million in revenue is actually the lowest cost point of entry as a percentage of revenue, but not the cheapest time to start with the Wizard of Ads® for Essential Services

Leveraging all economies of scale aside, we have been left out of the upside along the way, so engaging when over $20 million in revenue means we have to mend a lot of fences damaged along the way. This is also where clients see significant savings in their media buys and production costs.

There are also three market sizes to consider.

• Primary Markets are the top 50 cities in America.
• Secondary Markets are the smaller cities in America.
• Tertiary Markets are the more rural trade areas in America.

When considering an engagement with The Wizard of Ads® for Services, consider what size market you are in. For example, a $2 million company in a Primary Market will struggle to get the necessary reach needed to make a splash. 

You either have to be more patient than a larger company by spending your marketing budget carefully, or spend more money to accelerate your reach. We have different strategies for each of these scenarios. 

Alternatively, a $5 million company in a Secondary Market will look like a pretty darn big fish in a medium-sized pond.

A $20 Million company in a Primary Market will feel like a $50 million company using our strategies to potential customers.

The key to remember is that the earlier you start with the Wizard of Ads® for Essential Services , the lower the investment to get started. As they say, the best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is today.

If you’re ready to capture more market share by elevating your brand to the next level, give Ryan Chute a call today.

Michael Jordan wasn’t a perfectionist; he was an improvisationist. That’s why he was hard to stop.

A perfectionist knows exactly what he’s going to do. He plans his work and works his plan. The only problem is that because he knows, the defender knows, too.

It’s easy to anticipate what a perfectionist is going to do. He’s predictable.

But no one knew what Michael was going to do, because he didn’t know himself.

Does it surprise you that nearly all the superstar basketball players and top-scoring running backs test as improvisationists?

So do all the best ad writers.

Predictability is the curse of the perfectionist, and the silent assassin of advertising.

When you say what people expect you to say, no matter how perfectly you say it, you bore them.

Improvisation puts the bubbles in champagne.
Improvisation puts a wiggle in your walk.
Improvisation puts money in your bank account, bread in your basket, glitter on your cheek, and a smile on your face.

Unexpected is interesting.
Unpredictable is enlightening.
Improvised is exciting.

Random Entry is a technique that guarantees improvisation in advertising.

The magic of random entry begins when the ad writer doesn’t choose the opening line of the ad. Rather, it is chosen for him by someone who has no idea what they are doing.

Want to try it? Ask a stranger to think of a colorful sentence. Tell them to make it “vivid, unexpected, larger than life.” Tell them, “The sentence doesn’t have to be about anything in particular; it just has to cause people to be curious about where this story is headed.”

The best way to create Random Entry without the help of an unwitting accomplice is to flip open a book and place your finger on a page with your eyes closed. The sentence on which your finger lands will be the opening line of your ad.

“Wiggins was Harvey’s pet hamster.”

That’s your opening line for the 30-second radio ad you’re about to write for the company that provides your primary income. If your ad makes sense, elevates attention, and successfully sells a product or service, congratulations! You are an improvisationist.

Unless you work with seasoned marketers with rich experience writing irresistible advertising, like Ryan Chute’s teams at Wizard of Ads®. Book a call.

A world of absolutes is a tidy world, but narrow.

The wider world must make room for things that are not.

“Make room for things that are not.” I wrote about that last week, didn’t I?

We cling to absolutes, I think, because they give us the illusion of stability in a world of constant change.

We see rivers on maps, but in the strictest reality, you cannot step into the same river twice. The ripples, the creatures, the floating debris, even the shorelines change with each flickering moment.

I wrote to you in October of 2015 about The Color that Doesn’t Exist.What we’re talking about today is like that, but different.

The people you meet and the moments you experience in advertising and movies and literature and art exist only in the mind. They are symbols of possible pasts and futures.

Symbols are the signposts of imagination.

When we think ahead to the possible outcomes of our efforts, we see realities that could happen, but these are never the river we step into when we get there.

We’re talking about companies and brands.

We are attracted to brands that believe in the things we believe in, brands that show us a reflection of ourselves.

Every successful brand has a personality. A strong brand is an entity that lives in the imagination, just as real and full of hope and promise as any character in a television show, novel, or movie.

Much of what we buy is purchased to remind ourselves –and announce to the world around us –who we are.

The idea of a brand is lot like the idea of home.

Bart Giamatti was the Commissioner of Major League Baseball, a Professor of Comparative Literature, and the President of Yale University. These are his thoughts about “home.”

“There is no great long poem about baseball. It may be that baseball is itself it’s own great long poem. This had occurred to me in the course of my wondering why home plate wasn’t called fourth base. And then it came to me: Why not? Meditate on the name, for a moment, ‘home.’ Home is an English word that is virtually impossible to translate into other tongues. No translation catches the associations, the mixture of memory and longing, the sense of security and autonomy and the accessibility and the aroma of inclusiveness, of freedom from wariness. They cling to the word ‘home’ and are absent from ‘house’ or even ‘my house.’ Home is a concept, not a place. It is a state of mind where self-definition starts. It is origins: the mix of time and place and smell and weather, wherein one first realizes one is an original. Perhaps like others, especially those one loves, but discreet, distinct, not to be copied. Home is where one first learned to be separate. And it remains in the mind as the place where reunion, if it were ever to occur, would happen… All literary romance, all romance epic, derives from the Odyssey and it’s about going home. It’s about rejoining – rejoining a beloved, rejoining a parent to child, rejoining a land to its rightful owner or rule. Romance is about putting things aright after some tragedy has put them asunder. It is about restoration of the right relations among things. And going home is where that restoration occurs because that’s where it matters most. Baseball is, of course, entirely about going home. It’s the only game you ever heard of where you want to get back to where you started; all the other games are territorial – you want to get his or her territory – not baseball. Baseball simply wants to get you from here back around to here.”

We remember home, not so much as a place, but as a state of mind.

Likewise, the power of a brand is a state of mind.

The creation of a good product is easy.
The delivery of a delightful service is difficult.
The telling of a good story; that’s where the money is.

If you aren’t a showman or a storyteller, you’re still in good company. Wizard of Ads® can help you create the brand or marketing story you need to drive your user experience. Book a call.

Every successful person has a blind spot.

Here’s what often happens:

1. You have a unique approach, a particular process, or a special emphasis.
2. It separates you from your competitors.
3. Your commitment to it makes you successful.

So far, so good. You found a way to be different and it made you a success!

But now your hockey-stick growth has begun to flatten out and level off.

You’ve obviously reached a plateau.

How do you get to the next level?

Most people double-down on the thing that brought them success.

That’s when it happens: Blind Spot Blowback.

The thing that made you a success will rarely take you to the next level.

I’m not suggesting you abandon it. That would be stupid. You’ve got to maintain what you’ve begun.

But that’s easy. You like doing it. It comes to you naturally. That’s why you feel good about pressing the accelerator even further.

But your business did not quit accelerating because you failed to press the gas pedal hard enough.

Your business quit accelerating because it’s time to shift into second gear.

Your first innovation shot you like a rocket off the starting line. You were shoved back into your seat by the g-force of your acceleration. The crowd went wild.

And then things began to level off.

Second gear, idiot! Second gear!

But few people ever find second gear.

They believe in first gear. First gear works for them. First gear is where they feel comfortable. Second gear seems counter-intuitive. They’re not sure second gear would be the right thing for them.

They want someone to help them get more speed out of first gear.

Your business doesn’t have an automatic transmission.
You’ve got to press the clutch and move the lever.
Only then can you press the pedal again.

And someday, if you’re lucky, you’ll get to do this all over again at a much higher level.

Are you lucky?

To learn more about how we can help you, book a call with Ryan Chute of Wizard of Ads® today.

The object of conformity and compliance is to bring the best of the past forward.

A person can achieve expert results by following in the footsteps of an expert.

The old ways are often the best ways.

But you, my strong-willed friend, are a nonconformist; a renegade, a rebel, a misfit. One of “those” people.

Congratulations.

Discoveries are made only by those who stray from the path.

“I make more mistakes than anyone else I know, and sooner or later, I patent most of them.”
– Thomas Edison

“If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.”
– Henry David Thoreau

“The reward for conformity is that everyone likes you except yourself.”
– Rita Mae Brown, Venus Envy

You and I know an empowering secret: traditional wisdom is often more tradition than wisdom.

That kind of talk is heresy when you’re surrounded by guardians of the orthodox. Let’s hope that none of them are listening.

Two Powerful Questions and a Magic Word:

1. When someone shouts, “You can’t do that!”
   Ask yourself, “What happens if I do?”
   If the potential reward is large and the negative consequences are small, pull the trigger and ride the bullet.
2. When someone says, “You have to.”
   Ask yourself, “What happens if I don’t?”
   If your distaste for the activity is strong and the negative consequences are weak, shrug your shoulders and walk away.

We’re talking about a simple but powerful concept: the evaluation of consequences.

Sometimes it’s better to learn from expert advice and example.
Sometimes it’s better to wander off the beaten path and learn from consequences.
Your gut will tell you when.

Here’s another way to put “consequences” to work for you:

The next time you want to do something unorthodox and you need permission, say to the authority above you, “I’d like to do an experiment.”

And then immediately tell them:
1. what you hope to learn,
2. why that information will be useful,
3. how long the experiment will take, and
4. what it will cost.

It’s going to blow your mind how often you get approval. Present the same idea as a suggested change to the status quo and you’ll be shot out of the sky quicker than an October duck in Saskatchewan.

The Magic word is “Experiment.”

“Experiment” promises
1. A budgeted window of time and resources, and
2. “We’re about to learn something valuable that we don’t currently know.”

The price of continual conformity and compliance is that one never experiences discovery.

What a sad way to live!

Book a call with Ryan Chute of Wizard of Ads®, and let's create those mind-blowing ads.  

Traditional marketing agencies are designed to capture the greatest amount of revenue from a client, regardless of results. Every last item is billed and expensed to the client. Typical “full service” agency fees can represent a whopping 55% of the entire advertising budget. That means a 5 million dollar advertising budget, you would spend $2.75 million on agency fees.

Think of Wizard of Ads® for Essential Services as the Anti-Agency.

Our income is not tied to your advertising budget. Our income is exclusively tied to your growth. Our goal is to maximize your advertising impact with the lowest reasonable spend. This allows you to spend only what is necessary or to put extra horsepower into aggressively growing in your market.

The genius of this model is that it perfectly aligns our motivations as true partners for exponential profitable growth without the pain of being unaffordable. Ultimately, we are confident in taking the risk of being underpaid in the first few years because we know the results always speak for themselves.

Next, we do not accept commissions, referral fees, kickbacks, or other compensation from any service providers we recommend or engage for production work. Most agencies do. This includes the 15% agency commission for media buying. This approach is considerably different from the compensation plan employed by most advertising agencies, as it eliminates any potential conflicts of interest and allows us to focus our entire attention on helping you grow your business profitably as a true partner. For example, a $500,000 annual media buy would involve a $75,000 commission that we would have removed directly from your media providers' invoices.

This is the perfect pricing model for services-based companies.

By tying ourselves to gross revenue, we only have one motivation. Your motivation. We have no motivation to convince you to spend more money on marketing than what is necessary, and since we are a variable expense to sales, we NEVER become too expensive to have us on your team.

With or significant buying power, message impact, and understanding of holistic marketing mix, we can do more with 85% of your budget then you can do with 200%. In almost every case, we end up lowering the amount of money you spend, or spend the same amount with significantly better results.

We will stay within your planned marketing budget, including your media spend, production, and our Annual Fee. Add on the fact that you get any and all commissions back for media buys and various services provided by outside providers, and you will actually save money having us on your team.

With national buying power and proprietary algorithm, every dollar you spend buying media, Wizard’s only spend 27 cents. This stretches your reach, impact, and frequency in a way no other agency (or yourself) can achieve on your own, saving you hundreds of thousands of dollars, eventually millions, every single year.

Clients who heed our advice and embrace our Marketing Strategy quickly add $1 million in incremental revenue to their business, making your investment a smart bet and a bit of a no-brainer.  

There is no longer any guesswork, hope, or fear that our marketing strategies are going to work. When our clients abandon their limiting beliefs about marketing, deliver operational excellence, and play the long game, our marketing strategy will accelerate their profitable growth.

Wizard of Ads® for Essential Services pricing model is based solely on your company's topline revenue. It consists of an Upfront Fee and an Annual Fee. These fees are inclusive of scheduled travel, services, and all other expenditures as outlined in the Consulting Agreement.

The Upfront Fee covers the intensive Uncovery Process, the first year’s Media Negotiation, the Creative Process, and the Market Research.
‍The Annual Fee goes toward implementation, ongoing creative development, consulting, channel alignment, and next year's media buy. Wizard of Ads® for Essential Services Creative Lead will create the ad copy, cast the voice actors, source the production house, direct the performance, pick the music bed, manage all the edits, and provide you with the completed ad for final approval before sending to air on your behalf. This is included in our fees.

You pay for the ads to run, production house, actors, royalty-free music, and jingles directly to avoid any potential for markups, commissions, or management fees.

We have many friends in the industry who give our clients good deals due to the large volume of work we provide them. We will introduce you to them.

While the upfront does have an initial pinch, it is easy to amortize the investment over the many years we will be working together to grow your business. Wizard of Ads® retain clients for 10 years, on average. The sale of the business is the number one reason for termination. We actively terminate the bottom 1% of clients who are unwilling or unable to follow our strategies.

Wizard of Ads® for Essential Services believes that all rewards should be directly correlated to the success of our clients. This means that the Wizard of Ads® for Essential Services only receives a raise when the company achieves growth. 

For example, if your gross sales for the year have increased by 25%, the Annual Fee you pay us in the following year will also be increased by 25%. Likewise, if your gross sales decrease, our Annual Fee will decrease by the same percentage during the following year.

This is an exceptionally easy and fair way to track and reward success. This model was developed by Wizard of Ads® over 35 years ago and has served us well because it serves our clients well.

As a rule of thumb, we take the risk of working for considerably less than our actual value in the first few years as we help accelerate growth. This means you need to be willing to pay us exceptionally well when you start doing even better.

If you’re a great operator who knows you can do better with Wizard of Ads® for Essential Services as your partner, give Wizard Ryan Chute a call to see how we might work together.