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Wizard Academy began with an itch and an image.

I got the itch in Tulsa in 1978 when I was 20 years old.
I saw the image online in 1994 when I was 36.

The itch was to help little businesses succeed.

The image was of a boy sitting beneath the stars with an open book in his lap. The crenels and merlons in the battlements beyond him suggested that he was sitting on the top of a castle tower.

Looking at that cartoon image on my computer screen, I knew I was going to build that tower.

I know this makes me sound crazy, but there have been a handful of moments in my life when I quietly but suddenly knew what was going to happen. I’m not talking about premonitions or visions or dreams or hopes or wishes. I’m not talking about goals or goal-setting. I’m talking about knowing something as surely as if it had already happened.

Did I mention that I know this makes me sound crazy?

I was 13 when I saw a photograph of Pennie Compton and knew that I was going to marry her. The two of us had never met. A few months earlier, I had been flipping through a 1963 Reader’s Digest atlas of the world when I noticed a city – Austin – in the center of Texas. I remember raising an eyebrow when I suddenly knew I would move there someday. The sequence of events that would cause these things to happen remained an absolute mystery to me. But the outcome was never in question.

So I knew I was going to build that tower. But I had no idea why.

My 1978 itch to help small businesses grow led to a string of remarkable successes. By 1992 I was traveling 40 weeks a year teaching ever-larger groups of business owners how to lift themselves to higher levels of success.

I hated it.

Dorothy was right, “There’s no place like home.” I’ve suffered from separation anxiety throughout my life. Travel, for me, is “the little death.”

“Honey,” said Pennie in 1993, “let the people who want your help come to Austin. Schedule a monthly class in our conference room and if someone wants to come to it, they can come.”

When we outgrew that conference room we began to rent the ballrooms of luxury hotels. By the time we paid for those rooms and rented the projection equipment and bought the coffee at $60 a pot and fed lunch to all our guests, we were spending about $20,000 per event to host these classes.

Did I mention that we weren’t charging anyone to attend the classes, and that we had no capacity to serve additional clients?

So we built a new headquarters building for our marketing business with a large, open room on the second floor that we could use as a classroom. That worked for about 2 years.

Then we built a classroom building next to the main office building. That bought us an extra 4 years.

Then, in 2004, Pennie said, “Honey, I found some land we should buy.”

“Why do we want to buy some land?”

“We’ll build some stuff for ourselves on one half of it, and then donate the other half to Wizard Academy and let the school become whatever it wants to become.”

When she showed me the land, I smiled. There, on the top of that majestic plateau was the tower I had seen 10 years earlier. It wasn’t physically there, of course, but I knew that someday it would be.

If you have a crazy image in your mind of a possible future, an inexplicable guiding star that encourages you in the dark moments and lights your way one step at a time, never forget that you have a tribe, and they’ve built a fascinating place for you to come when you need guidance or instruction or fellowship or encouragement.

Do you have an idea? An itch? A hunger?
Do you see something that no one else can see?
Are you willing to leave a trail of sweat and tears and dollars behind you as you struggle to make it real?

Welcome to Wizard Academy.
You, my friend, are exactly our brand of crazy.

Book a call with Ryan Chute of Wizard of Ads®, and we’ll hook you up.

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.¹

Yes, 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.” ²

There 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. ³

Do 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 art
is how you agree to be paid.

If you're struggling to craft killer direct response ads for your business, Ryan Chute from Wizard of Ads® can help. Book a call.  

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?)

1. 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.”
2. 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.”
3. 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.”
4. Now that I think about it, never claim anything at all. Just demonstrate the quality you want to be known for.
5. 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.

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

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:

1. to be experts in your business category, and
2. to 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.

If you're struggling to craft killer direct response ads for your business, Ryan Chute from Wizard of Ads® can help. Book a call.

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 agree. In my experience, they usually fall within a 10 percent window of variation. The two most reliable numbers are (1) the educated guesses of the sales volumes of each client in the category, and (2.) the NAICS totals, which are based on taxation data.)

1. List every competitor in your category and attach to their name your best guess regarding their sales volume. Total these, and be sure to include your own volume. This is your market potential.
2. Extract the total U.S. sales for your category from the NAICS data at www.census.gov. Divide this number by the population of the U.S. to get a per-capita average. Multiply that average times the population of your trade area. This is your market potential. NAICS data is clunky and hard to isolate, but it’s there and it’s reliable. Just keep digging.
3. Most trade magazines will publish the annual U.S. volume for the category they cover. Divide this number by the population of the U.S. to get a per-capita average. Multiply that average times the population of your trade area. This is your market potential.
4. Ask Google for the national and/or state sales per-capita in your category. Calculate a per-capita average, then multiply that average times the population of your trade area. This is your market potential.

NOTE: The weakness of methods 2 through 4 are the assumption that the population of every city behaves roughly the same as the population of every other city. This is why state data is better than national data, but your local store-by-store estimate (#1) will likely be the most accurate of all.

Here’s how to determine whether a service category is populated with strong competitors:
Compile the total number of Google reviews for the entire category in the trade area. What percentage of that total number of reviews belong to the company with the largest number? If the leader has only 6 to 10 percent, your category is begging for a leader to step in and bloody everyone’s nose. If the leader owns 20-or-more percent of all reviews, look to see if the second, third, and fourth-place finishers are close behind. If they are, this is going to be a tougher-than-average marketplace in which to compete in that category. If you see a leader that owns 30+ percent of all the Google reviews, these people are a force with which to be reckoned. The exception, of course, is if you’re in a small town without a full complement of competitors.

NOTE: This methodology assumes that a company’s percentage of the total reviews for their category will reflect (1.) the size of that company’s customer base, or (2.) that the company has a high degree of customer engagement. Either way, these percentages are an indicator of the relative strength and weakness of competitors in that category.

Hopefully, you’ll find some of these tools to be useful.

Have a great week.

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

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?

Book a call with Ryan Chute of Wizard of Ads® today.