Gratuitous sorcery and incantations from actual Wizards.

Ask a businessperson or a marketing professional, “What is branding?”

Go ahead. Go do it. I’ll wait…

Did they mention the importance of a having a logo? Did they talk about the consistent use of a chosen group of “brand” colors and a particular font and layout and look and feel? Have you done what they told you? Congratulations! You now have a visual style guide.

And so does every other business on earth.

The reason I avoid using the word “branding” is because most people think they’re already doing it.

Here’s a far more important question: What are you doing to create an emotional bond with customers you’ve not yet met? This is the real goal of branding. But since too many people think they’re “branding” when all they’re doing is following a visual style guide, let’s you and I call this process “customer bonding,” okay?

If your visual style guide is successful, people will recognize you when they see you.

If your customer bonding program is successful, people will think of you and feel good about you when they finally need what you sell.

Now let’s take this discussion to the street:

1. You sell a product or service that people buy less often than once a year.
2. There’s no way to know exactly who is going to need you, or when.
3. This is why you’re investing in Search Engine Optimization and all those keywords. Am I right?

So far, so good: now when the prospective customer finally needs what you sell, you’re going to show up…

along with everyone else in your category.

Let’s see what happens next:

Your customer is scanning the results of their search.

Do you want to know which company is going to get the click, the call and the sale?

Surprise! It’s the company that’s been bonding with customers through mass media.

One of the first signs your customer bonding program is working is that your online cost for lead generation will sharply decline and your conversion rate will rise.

The SEO weasels will try to take credit for this, of course, by claiming they made some refinements to your keywords or found some efficient new way to target or blah, blah, blah. This is one of my favorite moments.

Because I told the business owner this would happen.

So when it does, they always laugh.

I want you to laugh, too.

It’s never too late to start bonding.

Lower costs, higher conversion rates, and laughter.

These are just the byproducts and side effects.

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

I’m in a strange mood. I hope you’ll forgive me.

I’ve been contemplating things unsaid. Deeds undone. Symphonies unfinished.

The reality of mortality has shown up as a hole in the light, a silhouette on the horizon. And its whispering voice has led me to compile a list of unfiltered thoughts that seem to me, remarkable. Thoughts that should not be lost.

Perhaps I overreact. I get this way when I’ve been traveling too much, speaking too much, alone too little.

I think of all the things I’ve learned that deserve to be remembered. These are the first five that pop into my misty mind as I sit on this airplane in the sky.

Don’t follow your passion. Let your passion follow you.

Passion does not produce commitment.
Commitment produces passion.
Passion does not lead to success.
Commitment leads to success.

Recreation is not a vocation.

Rest, Shabbat, is necessary. So set aside your labor – often – and inhale the stuff of life. But recreation is not your goal; it is your fuel. The perpetual pursuit of pleasure leaves a person hollow inside. A life filled with money and no work is a fantasy for fools. Do you see the boredom that hides behind the smiles of the idle rich? Look beneath that boredom and you will see the walking dead.

Everyone needs the same three things: Identity, Purpose, and Adventure.

1. Identity: Who am I? Where is my tribe? Who are my people? Abraham Maslow said the greatest unmet need of 65% of us was our need to belong. I’ve never doubted it for a moment.
2. Purpose: What should I do with the rest of my life? What should I stand for? What should I stand against? How can I make a difference, leave a mark, be remembered?
3. Adventure: How will I overcome the obstacles that will stand in my way, the challenges that will confront me, the enemies that will make themselves known?

When it’s time to make something from nothing, you must first decide:

1. How to End: begin with the end in mind.
2. Where to begin: approach from an unusual angle.
3. What to leave out: shorter hits harder.

And the most important thing to remember is this:

Marry your best friend. Your mate will be your partner in every aspect of your life. Don’t marry beauty. Don’t marry wealth. Marry the person who will guard your back in the darkness when dragons are about and things get tricky wicked.

Marry your best friend.

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

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