Wizard of Ads Monday Morning Memo

Roy H. Williams
  • 4.8 (48)
  • Marketing
  • Updated Weekly

Thousands of people are starting their workweeks with smiles of invigoration as they log on to their computers to find their Monday Morning Memo just waiting to be devoured. Straight from the middle-of-the-night keystrokes of Roy H. Williams, the MMMemo is an insightful and provocative series of well-crafted thoughts about the life of business and the business of life.

  1. 5d ago

    The Only Rule of Success

    I promise that I will state plainly for you – in ten short words – the singular Rule of Success before you have finished reading this Monday Morning Memo. Stay quiet and stay close. We are wandering into a dangerous area. To see the glittering truth of the Rule of Success, we must quietly sneak up on it. The North Star never moves because it hovers directly above the axis of the earth. If you draw a line from the South Pole to the North Pole and then extend that line 323 light years into space, it will touch the North Star. Your life’s goal is your guiding light, your North Star. This is why you are forever traveling northward as you pursue your dream.But there is a limit to north. That limit is called the North Pole. When you go beyond that limit, you are now headed in the opposite direction. This is the bitter truth that has been tasted by every person who has achieved their life’s goal: “You work your whole life to reach the summit. And when you get there, all the roads lead down.” Like every rule, North and South are finite and achievable. Like every principle, East and West are infinite and unachievable. You can travel east forever and never reach the end of “east.” “The opposite of a correct statement is an incorrect statement. But the opposite of a profound truth is often another profound truth.” Without intending to do so, Niels Bohr summarized in those two sentences the fundamental difference between a rule and a principle. The first sentence describes every rule. The second sentence describes every principle. The person who turns a principle into a rule is a fool.I call that person a fool only because their mind is not big enough to hold in stasis the contradictory tension that is at the heart of every profound truth. Did it ever occur to you that helping people get what they want is the foundational principle behind every business on earth? Do you want to be successful? This the only Rule of Success: “Find out what people want, then give it to them.” Jesus taught us the eternal principle behind the Rule of Success when he said, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” Remove “Love” from that principle, and you will have a similar principle that says, “It is always good to help people get what they want.” But here is the “opposite truth” of that principle: “It is always bad to help people get what they want when it would require injuring an innocent person.” In other words, removing “love” wasn’t such a great idea. People who worship at the altar of Ayn Rand always try to convince me that it is okay to damage naive, gullible, innocent people “because the only person that really matters is you, and you are not responsible for making other people happy. You are only responsible for making yourself happy.” Interestingly, that is exactly what Jeffrey Epstein believed.He died in prison for his belief, and his name has become a curse word. Bernie Madoff was only pretending to help people get what they wanted. He was perceived as “successful” for as long as he was able to sustain his con. Bernie likewise died in prison. Sam Bankman-Fried was a young fool who pretended to be helping people while he was robbing them blind. The courts took away the 11 billion dollars he stole. Then they locked him in a room the size of a walk-in closet where he will spend the next 25 years of his life. Removing love is never a good idea. – Roy H. Williams

    6 min

  2. May 18

    How to Write Effective Ads

    Effective advertising is not about delivering information; it is about delivering persuasion.Don’t tell your audience how to feel. Make them feel. Great ad writers are secret poets. Poetry is not about making words rhyme. Poetry is about leading people to a realization. Poetic ad writers open your eyes and cause you to realize. They lead you to a conclusion, then let you discover it for yourself. Great writers don’t tell you. They show you. This poem will do that:What of the watchman on the wall? What says the watchman? “It is 10pm, let the night begin.” What says the watchman? “It is 11 at night, everything is all right.” What says the watchman? “It is midnight, the bell has rung. Every song has been sung.” What says the watchman? “It it is 1am, I am all alone. I am all alone.” What says the watchman? “It is 2am, scrolling on my phone.” What says the watchman? What says the watchman? What says the watchman? What says the watchman? The watchman watched his phone. The enemy arrived. The watchman is gone. Don’t just deliver information. Deliver persuasion.Open their eyes. Make them realize. When they see what you see, they will do what you want them to. Win the heart and the mind will follow. The mind will always create logic to justify what the heart has already decided. Roy H. Williams Cheryl Strauss Einhorn helps executives, entrepreneurs, and leadership teams make smarter, more confident choices and avoid costly mistakes. As a Decision Science strategist, Cheryl developed the widely used AREA Method, a framework designed to help leaders challenge assumptions, reduce cognitive bias, and improve judgment in high-stakes situations. In this week’s episode of Monday Morning Radio, Cheryl explains to roving reporter Rotbart that while “gut instinct” plays a valuable role in business, too many leaders rely on it entirely, rather than grounding their decisions in real-world testing, stakeholder input, rigorous analysis, and evidence. Listen and learn at MondayMorningRadio.com

    4 min

  3. May 11

    How to Strengthen Your Brand in 3 Easy Steps

    Find out what people already want, then offer them exactly that. Quit trying to convince customers that they should want what you are selling.Speak to everyone, everywhere, about widely felt needs, deeply held beliefs, and personal values. Quit telling yourself that you need to reach “the right people” with your advertising.A: The media doesn’t make the message work. The message makes the media work. I’ve never seen a business fail because they were were reaching the wrong people. But I’ve seen hundreds fail because they were saying the wrong things.B: Anyone who has a friend, a relative, a co-worker, or a neighbor is an influencer. Is there anyone that you DON’T want to say good things about you?C: Powerful brands like Ferrari, Rolex, and Harley Davidson are known, loved, and admired by hundreds of millions of people who will never own a Ferrari, a Rolex, or a Harley. Do you think those brands would be better off if they were known only to the people that the brands chose to “target” as potential customers? Customers buy from personalities they know, like, and trust.A: People don’t bond with corporations, they bond with personalities.B: Brands that have personalities are exactly as real to us as our favorite characters in novels, television shows, cartoons, and movies. Who doesn’t love R2D2, C3PO, and Yoda? You realize those characters are purely imaginary, right? But we feel as though we know them.C: Does your brand have a distinctive personality? If not, why not? I will now summarize each of those 3 Steps in exactly 12 words.People want friends, honesty, encouragement, access, and to know that they matter.Buy mass media. Quit fishing with a hook. Use a net instead.Don’t be so boring. Find some courage. Be a distinctively memorable personality.Roy H. Williams Zig Ziglar would have turned 100 this year. This week, Tom Ziglar shares some little-known stories about his father with roving reporter Rotbart and deputy rover, Maxwell, including the fact that despite Zig’s worldwide fame, he once carried a stranger’s luggage to the guest’s hotel room simply because the out-of-towner took one look at Zig’s red sports coat and thought he was a bellman. But todays episode is more than a nostalgic look backward, as Tom Ziglar offers a thoughtful meditation on legacy, leadership, and the enduring power of optimism. Things are looking UP at MondayMorningRadio.com.

    3 min

  4. May 4

    Welcome to the Inflection Point

    I write this with reluctance because I know that I will receive hundreds of emails correcting me on a few niggling little details.But write on, I must. “Write on, write on, write on.” “Cost of Compute” refers to the $8 to $13 that every AI company has to spend on electricity and short-lived computer chips for every $1 that comes through the door. Losing a dozen dollars for every dollar you touch isn’t a problem when investors are showering you with cash from a fire hose. But it’s beginning to look like the well has run dry. I did not want to defend where I got my information, so I went to the Goog and asked, “Oh Great Googness, why are people referring to the S&P 500 as the “S&P 10”? Check this out, cub scout, straight from the AI of the Almighty Google: “The S&P 500 is being referred to as the “S&P 10″ because a handful of massive technology-related companies dominate the index’s performance. Due to market-cap weighting, these top 10 stocks disproportionately influence the index’s total return, making the ‘broad market’ performance heavily reliant on these few, AI-exposed companies. More than $40 of every $100 invested in the S&P 500 is going into just 10 companies, creating a high level of concentration not seen in decades. In some recent periods, those top 10 stocks have accounted for nearly 90% of the entire index’s gains, indicating that the remaining 490+ stocks contribute very little to the overall upward movement.” Allow me to highlight Three Big Problems.Manufacturing companies, food companies, service companies, and all the other cash-hungry hopefuls that are the true wonders of the American economy have not been able to raise any money because way too many people have been dumping everything they’ve got into AI.That money has now slowed down, which means that a lot of AI dependent companies are now being burned by their “burn rate,” a slang term for “precisely how fast they are losing money.”AI is getting worse, not better, despite the fact that everyone is repeating like parrots, “AI is worse now than it will ever be. Hour by hour, AI will just keep getting better and better forever and ever.” Okay, I can tell from the look of doubt that I see in your eyes that you need me to explain a little bit more about Problem Number 3. They can’t raise prices fast enough to stop the bleeding, so most of the AI companies have reduced their Cost of Compute by 86%. “But how?” you ask. Here’s how. In the recent past, you could give your $200/mo AI some detailed instructions and it would go on a deep dive to bring you the golden nuggets of information that you requested. The 86% savings of Compute Cost is because they instructed the AI to just look in the cache for what they told someone else who asked a similar question. You get a recycled answer, and the AI company saves 86%. I’ll wrap this up by giving you the storyteller’s definition of “inflection point.”Bad storytellers say, “This happened, then This happened, then This happened, then This happened, then This happened.” Real stories happen like this: “This happened, THEREFORE this happened, BUT then, This happened.” “BUT then, This happened” is called “an Inflection Point.” “So what’s going to happen next?” Let’s wait and see. Roy H. Williams

    6 min

  5. Apr 24

    A Line of Standing Dominoes

    I could be wrong, but I think I see a line of 6,603 standing dominoes with a forefinger poised to flick the first domino.Take a step back, I’ll give you some facts, and then we’ll return to the dominoes. There are 6,602 FM radio stations in America, 597 FM stations in Canada, and 234 in Australia on which you can air radio ads for local businesses. These radio stations are producing miraculous results for business owners who hire great ad writers to enchant the audience and savvy media buyers to schedule those ads to air with correct repetition 52 weeks a year. Sadly, most business owners do exactly the wrong thing. They run short schedules to “test the waters,” and then announce, “I tried radio and it didn’t work.” ABC, NBC, CBS, and FOX are producing miraculous results for business owners who hire great ad writers to enchant the audience and savvy media buyers to schedule those ads to air with correct repetition 52 weeks a year. Sadly, most business owners do exactly the wrong thing. They run short schedules to “test the waters,” and then announce, “I tried television and TV didn’t work.” Did you notice the similarity that united those two easily proven facts? Anyone who believes that online media has made mass media obsolete is comically delusional. I never waste time attempting to correct these people. We will now return to the dominoes.Nielsen Audio is the media measurement company that allows savvy media buyers to create miraculous radio schedules. Without Nielsen, they are flying blind without instruments and very likely to crash their flying machines.Cumulus owns multiple radio stations in 84 important cities in the U.S. Their current financial difficulties make it impossible for them to pay Nielsen for their measurement services.Nielsen has responded by announcing that Cumulus radio stations will no longer be measured or listed in future ratings reports.The resulting invisibility of those stations will cripple even the savviest media buyers.An emerging measurement system, DTS AutoStage, shows promise but I remain convinced that it will be at least a few more years before it has sufficient breadth of data to replace Nielsen. The finger of Nielsen is flicking the domino that will knock over the other 6,602 dominoes in the chain that will ultimately result in the demise of Nielsen.I have no way of knowing whether or not Nielsen realizes that. Nielsen was purchased by private equity on October 11, 2022, less than 4 years ago. Things are looking good for ABC, NBC, CBS, and FOX. Roy H. WilliamsWhen people talk about the Chicago Cubs and their historic 2016 World Series victory — ending a 108-year drought — Joshua Lifrak is a name you rarely hear. But he wears a Cubs World Series ring. Joshua Lifrak’s job was to help players perform under extraordinary pressure. Today Joshua works with business leaders to sharpen focus, build mental resilience and perform at their best. Be fascinated as Joshua tells roving reporter Rotbart and deputy rover Maxwell how peak mental conditioning is a “home run” skill that anyone can learn and practice, regardless of what they do for a living. Batter up! at MondayMorningRadio.com

    5 min

  6. Apr 20

    Advice and Encouragement

    Just as strawberries taste better when they are dipped in chocolate, advice tastes better when it is wrapped in a thick coating of encouragement.Your advice is valuable, but it will never make as big a difference as your encouragement. Encouragement is the opposite of flattery. When you flatter someone, you tell them something positive about themselves that they know is not true. And they suspect that you know it is not true. A flatterer is a liar who believes they are talking to a fool. When you encourage someone, you tell them something you have observed in them that they know is true, or have always hoped was true, and you are simply confirming it by speaking it out loud. You believe it to be true, and they know you do. And now they believe it, too. You have spoken to the greatness in them. You have seen something in them that they have always hoped someone would see. That’s what makes you a great encourager. The people in your life need your encouragement more than they need your advice. Think about the people who have made the biggest difference in your life.Those people believed in you and gave you their: TimeAttentionPatienceConfidence When I say they “gave you their confidence,” I mean that literally. I’m not saying that they confided in you. I’m saying that they had confidence in you when you had none in yourself. They gave THEIR confidence TO you. They gave you the confidence that you have today. Give a person confidence and they will never forget your name, your face, or that moment. The people who gave you confidence saw something in you that they wanted you to share with the world. Their reward was that they got to see you flourish and blossom and grow. Today they are seeing you make a difference everywhere you go. Would you like to become an encourager?When you see a stranger do something skillfully, say, “You make that look easy, and I know it isn’t. You really have a talent for that.” And then allow them to react.When a person says, “I’ve always wanted to become a __________, but everyone tells me that I couldn’t possibly do that because I __________.” Look at them and say, “Of course you can do it! I KNOW that you can do it. You just need to decide whether or not you’re going to.”When you have known a person for awhile and have seen a recurrent characteristic in them that you admire, say to them, “There are a lot of things about you that I really admire, but the thing that always knocks me over is when you_____________.” Your words will light a candle in them that will never go out.The lightning bolt of your encouragement will propel them forward and light their pathway for the rest of their life. We need encouragers, and we need them badly. I want you to consider becoming one. Roy H. Williams Martin “Marty” Strong is a former Navy SEAL, business leader, and author who challenges conventional thinking about how companies — and the people who oversee them — should operate. Blending lessons from the battlefield and the executive suite, Lieutenant Strong argues that too many of today’s leaders cling to outdated methods, failing to recognize that the marketplace is constantly evolving — and that effective managers must anticipate and adapt to change. To do otherwise, he tells roving reporter Rotbart, is like relying on an old encyclopedia — making critical decisions based on information that is no longer accurate or relevant.

    5 min

  7. Apr 13

    The Time, the Place, the Person

    In the Kairos moment, you will find yourself in an unknown place.And a person will appear. This person is known among storytellers as “The Old Man in the Woods.” His job is to prepare you for all the challenges you will face on the next segment of your adventure. Mr. Miyagi was the Old Man in the Woods for Daniel LaRusso in the Karate Kid. Obi-Wan was Luke Skywalker’s first Old Man in the Woods, and Yoda was his second. Have you noticed how every James Bond movie begins with 007 visiting “Q”? “Q” is the armorer who supplies 007 with precisely the gadgets he will need to accomplish his next mission. “Q” is James Bond’s “Old Man in the Woods.” Luke chapter 4 tell us of how Jesus, immediately after his baptism, spent 40 days in the wilderness of Judea. When he emerged from that wilderness, he revealed himself to the world. Verse 14 of that chapter says, “Jesus returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit, and news about him spread through the whole countryside.” Would it be fair to say that Jesus spent 40 days with the ultimate “Old Man in the Woods” prior to doing what he famously did?John bar Zebedee sat next to Jesus during The Last Supper. He was the only one of Jesus’ followers to witness the crucifixion. And was entrusted by Jesus – from the cross – to care for his mother, Mary, while He was away. John bar Zebedee, in chapter two of First John*, writes about the Three Stages of Life. He speaks of the Child, the Young Man, and the Old Man. I am writing to you, dear Children, because your sins have been forgiven on account of his name, and because you know the Father. I write to you, Young Men, because you are strong, and the word of God lives in you, and you have overcome the evil one. I am writing to you, Fathers, because you know Him who is from the beginning. Because you know Him who is from the beginning. Children spend a dozen or more years preparing to become the strong Young Men and strong Young Women who, full of zest and zeal and zip-a-dee-doo-dah, will face challenges, overcome difficulties, and leave their fingerprints on the world. And every one of them will need an advisor – an older and wiser friend – to counsel them, encourage them, and prepare them for what lies ahead. John bar Zebedee was not speaking of biological Fathers and Mothers when he wrote the letter that we call the book of First John. The people John calls “Fathers” are those who have already wandered the pathless forest and found their way to the other side. The people John calls “Fathers” are those who already “know.” The American Dream promises that when you have finished your journey and completed your task, you can recreate, luxuriate, and selfishly celebrate your success for the rest of your life. And that certainly remains an option, if it appeals to you. But I believe that it will not.I believe that you will choose to advise, encourage, and counsel the next generation who must blaze a new and different trail through a new and different wilderness than the one that you and I faced. I believe that you will find fulfillment in your occasional role as “The Old Man” or “The Old Woman” in the woods. Roy H. Williams*I consolidated and reorganized what you will find in chapter two of First John, but if you read it closely, I believe you will agree that my retelling is faithful to the message of that original text.

    5 min

  8. Apr 6

    Everything Flows From Strategy

    I am always fascinated when I see business owners all marching in the same direction, doing the exact same things because they believe, “This is the way to differentiate yourself.” Do you believe that following the same strategy as everyone else is the way the surest way to succeed? Of course you don’t. Because if you were an unthinking conformist, you would never have subscribed to the MondayMorningMemo. StrategyEverything flows from strategy. Your logo is the flag waved by your strategy. Your sonic device is the trumpet call of your strategy. (Do you have a sonic device?) Your recurrent phrases – your brandable chunks – are the poetic expressions of your strategy. (Can you name your brandable chunks?) Your ad copy flows like a river from your strategy. How swift is the current in that river today? How many people are swimming, canoeing, skiing, biking, hiking, fishing, splashing, frolicing and dashing in your river right now? Your media buyer opens the floodgates that gush water into your river. (How good is your media buyer?) Do you understand why measuring ROAS is green kryptonite to every super-heroic strategy? Do you understand why verbs make a bigger difference than nouns and modifyers? Would you like to know these things and change the trajectory of your business and your life?Be in the Tower at Wizard Academy on May 26th and May 27th. Wisdom is knowing what to do. Understanding is knowing why it works. If you have an open mind and a hungry heart, your life will be forever changed. Or maybe you already know these things and should therefore absolutely, definitely, please don’t come. Roy H. Williams PS – Do you have a crazy idea? Would you like to learn from 4 famous people, each of whom have repeatedly taken their crazy ideas to the highest heights? It’s going to be an amazing adventure, full of wonder.

    4 min
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About

Thousands of people are starting their workweeks with smiles of invigoration as they log on to their computers to find their Monday Morning Memo just waiting to be devoured. Straight from the middle-of-the-night keystrokes of Roy H. Williams, the MMMemo is an insightful and provocative series of well-crafted thoughts about the life of business and the business of life.

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