I began talking to business owners all day, every day, when I was twenty years old.
This is why I have I have been writing 20 ads per week for the past 48 years. Poke those numbers into your computer and you will see that my lifetime total will exceed 50,000 ads in just 4 more weeks.
This is what I have learned from 48 years of writing radio and TV ads for owner-operated businesses across the U.S., Canada, and Australia:
- The game begins and ends with your ideas and your words. When your message is right, every media delivers results. When your message is wrong, no media delivers results.
- Don’t be fooled by short-term results created through false urgency. Short-term results are not scalable or sustainable.
- Advertising cannot be divorced from operations. If your advertising causes your customers to have expectations that your people fail to deliver, your ads will be working against you.
- Sales managers love to say to ad writers, “The job of advertising is to generate sales opportunities. If you double our sales opportunities, we will make twice as many sales. Show me what you can do.” These sales managers need to grasp the fact that when a customer has an experience that is different from what the ads promised, that customer will be dissatisfied and resentful, even if you made the sale.
Take a snapshot of that customer for your photo album because you will probably never see them again.
- When a customer is annoyed at you and resentful toward you, they tell an average of 28 people. And that statistic is from 25 years ago, prior to the advent of social media. I suspect the damage is bigger and happens faster today.
- Your business is doomed the moment your customers begin to ask, “When does this go on sale?” (If you are too young to have ever asked that question, this is because the huge companies whose salespeople were asked that question every day have mostly disappeared. If you have 3 or more “percentage discount” sales every year, it will take only a few years for your customers to realize that they will be able buy it cheaper if they wait until your next sale. This is when your “sales event” spikes get taller and taller on the sales graph, and the valleys in-between get wider and deeper. “Percentage-off” sales are addictive and destructive. If you don’t believe me, just ask anyone from one of the dozens of big discounting giants of yesterday who have filed for bankruptcy and disappeared from the earth.
- I have never seen a business fail because they were “reaching the wrong people.”
I have seen hundreds of businesses fail because they did not understand the Purpose of Advertising.
The Purpose of Advertising is to:
- Differentiate yourself from your competitors
- Become the company that people think of first, and feel the best about.
- Sell products and services
When you work all day, every day, with business owners, and follow the most credible research, those are the things you will learn.
Roy H. Williams
Most people have heard of the “Great Wealth Transfer” — the trillions of dollars that will pass from aging Baby Boomers to their children.
What is seldom discussed is the “Great Stuff Transfer”: All the personal and business possessions — including collectibles, furniture, vehicles, and sentimental keepsakes — that younger generations stand to inherit.
Mindy Godding is an award-winning organizer and down-sizer who understands the rewards and the pitfalls of deciding what to do with possessions accumulated over a lifetime.
Listen in as she explains to roving reporter Rotbart how this transition requires more than just deciding what to keep, donate, or discard. It begins with understanding the emotional and psychological attachments that make letting go so difficult. This is the episode you need to hear at MondayMorningRadio.com
