Depression through mine own eyes.

You decide
or You don't decide
The choice is yours
Or not yours,

You are, who you think you are
or You are who they think you are
You are both
or neither,

You are sad
or You are happy
You are both
or neither,

You are what you have
or You are what you want
You are both,
or neither,

You are your thoughts
or You are your actions
You are both
or neither,

You are Nothing
or You are Everything
You are both
or neither,

You are Mortal
or You are immortal
You are both
or neither,

You decide
Or Don't

Happy or Sad
Or neither

YOU choose.
Or don't.

The darkness is unbearable,
The light is unthinkable,
The consequence is unknowable,
The choice is unmentionable,

You are not ALONE.
Although you feel ALONE.

TOGETHER we can get through it.
TOGETHER we will survive.
TOGETHER we will be happy AGAIN.

TOGETHER...

You love drama, even if you won't admit to it...

Don't misinterpret Drama with Gossip. Drama in my vocabulary is the usage of storytelling to create a mental interpretation in the heads of the audience.

There is a gatekeeper in our human brains.
The Wizard of Ads calls this gatekeeper, Broca.
Broca doesn't like to be bored.
He will not let messages through to the brain unless you excite him.
There are four ways to get past the gatekeeper.

1. Subliminally
2. Using of anapestic metre
3. Humour
4. Drama

Today's blog is about Drama.

If you're trying to sell something, the usage of story has the power to pull a buyer into your world.  J. Peterman did it for years in his catalogues and you can too.

Here's an example of J. Peterman story for selling a pair of pants.

**************

1889.

A hurricane with gusts of eighty miles per hour tears through New York.

A crowd gathers to watch New York’s first skyscraper collapse.

The architect climbs up the scaffolding of the building.

Despite the hurricane, he reaches the top, jumps to his feet, waving his hat in triumph.

A gust knocks him over, skidding him to the edge of the scaffold.

At the very last moment, he grabs a rope and saves himself.

After climbing down he calmly stated, “The building stood as steady as a rock in the sea.”

Men’s Pure Wool Pants (No. 4898). Finely woven. A slightly bolder pattern than typical wool pants. Requires no exceptional acts of courage to wear. Looks particularly dashing with a black turtleneck. Classic fit, two front pleats. Lined to knee. Made in Portugal.

Please allow an additional 2-3 business days for alterations.

**********************

Tell a story, no different than when you were 10 years old.
You told anyone who would listen.
You rambled.
You embellished, slightly.
Your eyes widened and your words sped up with excitement.

And people listened. You captured an audience. Not because of the wild story but because of the way you told it.

I wrote an ad to sell a used blender on kijiji.
The story is true.
Aline and I used to make rum daiquiris to stay cool in the summer.
No where in the ad copy did I explain the age, features, benefits of the blender.
In the words of the Wizard of Ads Roy Williams, I left the unimportant "under water".

The original ad, "Blender, with ice crush function" $15 was up for a week, with 11 views.
And no sale.  
Not even a tweet of interest.

I changed the ad to play around with ad copy.
I was "farting around".

The best part of this ad is that I sold the blender the first day the new copy was used. And I received FULL asking price from the first courter.

Here's my "farting around" ad:

*********************************************************************

This blender was built for those lazy summer days. 
It's hard to imagine those dog daysi n the middle of March, when the temperature hovers around -4 degrees. 

You know it's coming. Those days when it's so hot outside, the sweat beads down your back the minute you go outside. 

You don't have a/c in the house so you depend on the floor fan to keep the air moving so you don't die of heat exhaustion. 

You don't feel like doing anything because the humidity is thicker than your mother in law's turkey gravy. Funny enough, you don't like moving after her gravy either. 

There are only two things you can do on those heat wrenched days. 

1. Get out of the house and go somewhere cooler (the mall, a friends house, the beach). 

2. Get some liquor, crush up some ice and serve rum daiquiris. 

We didn't have any friends with a/c. I hate the mall. And my body wasn't built for the beach. 

So we opted for number 2. This blender makes a mean strawberry daiquiri. It kept the wife and I cool for all those humid summers with its ice crush option. 

There are other options on it, but I only remember using the crush ice option. I probably used other options, but after a few of my daiquiries, the memory blurrs. 

One batch makes enough daiquiri to ward off all the sweat demons and helps you sleep through the heat infested evening. 

I don't know how I would have survived those summers without this blender. 

We moved and the new house had a/c. 

We don't use the blender anymore. 

So if you don't have a/c, hate the mall, don't have friends with a/c and don't have a beach body, I have the best option for you. 

Get a blender that crushes ice and have a few cold daiquiris.

***************************************************************

The usage of drama and storytelling pulls a reader into your world. Some won't care. 
In this case, I didn't need SOME. 
I needed ONE.

One of the biggest mistakes salespeople make is they think they need to appeal to EVERYONE.
That's not true.
They need a SMALL percentage of the market to have a more business than they can handle.

I found my ONE customer and now I have $15 where a blender once stood. 

Can you be honest and tell me you don't like drama? 

Think of all those stories from your childhood,
Or the stories you pay to see at the local theatre, 
Or the stories of an ad from J. Peterman.


If you want to use the power of DRAMA and storytelling to market your products, you can contact me at ricknicholson@wizardofads.com.

Get into their heads

You are busy.

The last thing you need is to be told you need that new gadget.

So you ignore the message.

You will not do something unless you've already gone there in your mind.

It's the job of the advertiser to get you there.

Marketing's job is to get in your customer's head.

Factual ads detailing features and benefits appeal to the left brain.

The left brain is responsible for logic and analysis.

Marketing's job is to get in your customer's head.

For them to remember the ad.

To recall the company.

To want the product.

Marketing's job is to create an emotion within the customer.

For them to remember the ad.

To recall the company.

To want the product.

Factual ads cannot do that.

The key to results based marketing is emotional based advertising.

Emotion is not linear or factual.

It's non linear.

It lives in the right hemisphere of the brain.

The right-brain wants to be entertained. It desires creativity. It thrives on ideas.

Will any old marketing work?

The simple answer is Yes.

But it means, that the customer has to ALREADY be in the market to buy when they hear the factual message.

They are ALREADY there.

Here's why you don't want to do any old marketing.

1. Your competitors are already doing it.

2. No one knows why you're better.

3. No one cares you exist.

4. They don't need you. They already have the product or service from someone else.

5. You'll waste a bunch of money and will think marketing doesn't work in your category.

6. If you haven't convinced them you are different, they will decide for themselves based on convenience, location and price. 

7. Price is a terrible marketing differentiator.

The key to get marketing to work is very simple.

1. Come up with a compelling message that no one else dares say.

2. Tell as many people as you can as effectively as you can.

3. Get in the customer's brain even when they don't see/hear your marketing.

4. Talk to your target audience a minimum of 3 times per week with a words that keeps changing but the message is the same.

If you do this, your cash register will be so full that you will need a bucket under the counter to throw in the extra cash to keep it from falling on the floor.

Tomorrow I'm going to show you an example of how to get in your customers' heads using Kijiji ads.

If you want to figure out how to get in your customers heads with your marketing, you can reach me at ricknicholson@wizardofads.com.

Witnessing a woman's pain

The empty face.
The wet eyes.
The dry voice.
The grey colour.

Emotional pain hurts,
Not only those inflicted,
Also the affected others.

There is no bandaid
Or a mother's kiss
That makes the pain
Disappear.

There is no magical cure
or wave of the wand
That makes the pain
Dissipate

There is only pain.
Deep, emotional, raw
Pain.

Life must go on,
Why?
No one knows how,
Except to take another step.

The heart is lured to quit
The soul is tantalized to wonder why
When the real question might be "Why not".

Why does this have to happen?
What purpose does it serve?
Except to hurt,
To pain,
To kill emotionally.

I've witnessed this pain four times.
Four STRONG women scammed by their emotions

Backstabbed by their Love.
Not of their fault.
That's why women are special,
Their ability to love,
Is unconditional!

Women are connected to their emotions.
So they cry...
Men cry too, but in a different way.

In my life,
Four times, women have been double crossed by their Love.
Four times... They wept uncontrollably
Four times... I cried for them uncontrollably
Four times... I cried with them uncontrollably
Four times... I hurt uncontrollably
Maybe I witnessed what it was like to be a woman.
For Four brief moments.

A cloudy, lonely pain,
As delicious as an uncooked steak.
As desirable as Disneyworld during a hurricane.

Four times, I sat and cried
Out loud,
Alone,
Hurt,
Uncontrollably,

Four times the image was the same.

Four times,
Empty.
Wet.
Dry.
Grey.

Four times...



This poem is dedicated to the four strong women who continue to influence my life. 

Your DNA will never forget, even after your gone

I am a product of my experiences. So are you.

Life has an ability to rip open our souls to teach us a lesson. When we don’t listen, the cut goes deeper and takes longer to heal.

Souls aren't worth one lifetime. They are the result of many lifetimes.  

Our DNA never forgets. It trains us like a herd of Pavlov dog’s to act predictably.

It is not only my experiences that dictates my actions and beliefs, it is also those of my parents, grandparents and great, great grandparents.

Their most important experiences created beliefs and thus their parenting styles. These styles are carried through generations and get fused into our DNA.

The lesser beliefs get lost. The unburdened get tossed. The strong ones gets carried to the next generation.

I don't think I'm like my dad, there's a cheapness about me that is easily recognizable in in my dad. I thought it ended there. My grandparents weren't cheap. They were poor. There's a difference between inability to pay and unwillingness to pay.

My friend David told me a story about a Scottish stereotype that they were cheap. 

Frugality is a trait found in Scottish families.  They aren’t lavish, show-offs. They keep their wallets close and save for the rainy day.  Nicholson is a Scottish clan.  So maybe, I come from a family that has been conditioned for centuries to be cheap. 

But what about my inability to accept authority?

Myers Briggs categorizes me an INFP: "Moderator". A moderator hates authority, needs to be included in decisions, does not like to be told what to do.

It is possible my INFP personality is something I learned and have been conditioned for.

I don't know where my hatred of authority comes from. My family wasn’t controlling.

In childhood, I wasn't overly controlled, except for two memorable times in school. There was the Jacket Judge of 1990 and the Detention Obstention of 1989

I was an A student, so the school rules seemed slacker for me. I would stand to defy the teacher, like a politician debating a writ into law. 

This story is about the Detention Obsention. The class was out of control. Jamie P was throwing erasers at Tommy B. Jason T was farting and making David H laugh uncontrollably. Even the girls were losing their minds with constant laughter and chitter chatter. In the midst of anarchy and full moons, literally, Ms Bourque lost her mind and put the entire class into detention at lunch time. 

I was laughing but not one of the antagonists. 
I thought the punishment wasn't appropriate for me. 
So I chose to boycott her detention. 

I went to the public library instead. The library was directly across the street from school and I had a general permission slip from my mom to leave school grounds at lunch time. I didn't need the books. I was hiding and silently objecting to Ms. Bourque's rule. After picking out two books, I made sure to catch the last moments of jail time. 

Ms. Bourque looked at me with the same disappointment my grandmother looked at me when I tormented my younger sister to tears. 
I argued the punishment didn’t fit the crime. 
I explained my plans trumped hers. 
And she didn’t have authority over my plans. 

But that day, I saw Ms Bourque’s face, under her mask of blush turn fire engine red. Her little orange-haired head bobbed back and forth like it was about to boil over the top. Her tongue was wrapped around her molars so tight that she barely squeezed out six words, “The rest of you can go”. 

I sat there for seconds, but it felt like an hour. Not a word was spoken until the bell blasted through the silence, signalling the end of lunch. She murmured while glaring into my soul with, “We have another date tomorrow”.  In which I quipped, “Not if I have something better planned”.  The next day, I decided it was in my best interest to spend time with Ms Bourque, so I did it.  

I lost her respect that day. Our relationship never healed. I wasn't a bad kid. I was a good student. 

I wasn’t a punk rebel. 
I didn’t like heavy metal or the t-shirts the rebels liked to wear. 

I didn’t smoke, drink or do drugs. 

Ms Bourque has reappeared in my life many times, in different forms. Punishment does not work on me. It makes me bitter, angry, vindictive and vengeful. Anyone who tries to tell me what to do loses me. I won’t contribute. I rebel, sabotage and defy...usually in silence.

I hate myself when I’m like that. It doesn’t solve anything.

But it is who I am. And I accept it.

Maybe that’s how the Scots felt under English rule.

It's impossible to know what your DNA holds, but it isn't so hard to know your MBTI personality profile. It has taught me a lot about who I am as a parent, worker, friend, spouse and child.

What is your MBTI? You can find out for free at 16personalities.com.

Are you ALL IN?

You are hiding in the bushes.
On the other side lay a deer.
You just killed it with your bear hands.
For now you hide.
Because you heard a rustle in the weeds.
You are the predator.
You are also the prey.
The rustle turns into the beast as he steps into the field.
He sees the deer.
He is hungry.
So are you.
What do you do?

Genetically, we are predisposed to eliminate risk from our lives. It saved us from our predators.

The ability to act despite the risk is responsible for all inventions.

We face risk and we worry about what could happen.
We associate it with negative results, specifically danger.
We think it's the beast that will kill us and eat our prey too.

In the above situation, Plan A was to get something to eat. Plan B is to run and hide to live another day.

We are often faced with risky decisions. We develop our plan A's and B's. Plan B is the alternative, not the desire. It's the safer of the two.

When faced with risk, it's easier to choose the alternative.
We can justify that the desire didn't WORK...

Primary plans cannot be executed if there is a Plan B.

When someone tells me they have a Plan B, I know they will fail at Plan A.
Things always go wrong.
I think it's God's way of asking us if we really want what we're looking for.
When things go wrong, it's easy to quit.
When you have a Plan B.
Not so, if you only have one Plan.

From my experience, if you are not ALL IN, then you're not IN at ALL.

Think about that the next time you make plans to do something. Do you have a Plan B?

Linear vs exponential

My electrician wanted to talk to me. He read the blog, "Why you shouldn't get into business" and wanted to discuss it.

I agree with most everything you said with one exception:
If I do 50% of the work of my competitor won't I get 50% of the results of him as well?

He stumped me. I didn't have an answer on the spot so I promised him I would think about it.

The quick answer is No.
The reason is exponentiality.

First off, assuming you work every week for 40 hours, but your competitor works 80 hours. In the competition race, he already has years of experience ahead of you. So working half the hours allows him to keep going further than you.  You can't catch him. He's more experienced, faster and gets more done in a week. Now if you're starting from the same place and you work half as hard as he does, you will always be halfway behind him.

This is a linear example. Like I said it's not a linear problem.

Let's use an example from the finance community to prove my point. If we save 1 cent per day, and the total amount saved doubles every day, how much money will we have in 30 days. The answer is $5,368,709.12.

If you save a half cent and instead of doubling every day, it only increases by 50%, do you know how much money you will have in 30 days? $1,775.47.

Even if we start from the same place, i.e. a penny saved with only 50% increases per day, the amount of money saved is $5,918.24.

Business results are not linear. They are exponential. The small daily efforts seem small in the beginning. It takes maximum effort every day. Over time, those efforts done consistently compound to pay off big time.

That is why working at half pace yields very little results.

The resulting difference isn't half. It's like a tenth of one percent.

The same thing happens with marketing efforts. Most business know they need to spend money in marketing, but they go in and out of the market. They try a tactic. Then they stop because it "didn't work". They try another tactic. Again, they stop complaining about it not working. They never allow the power of compounding to help them.

The other scenario I see with marketing is customers will do 100% of the work and quit before the huge payoff.  Imagine my first example on exponentiality. 20 days of hard work yields small results. It's the last five days that makes us millionaires beyond our wildest dreams.

If you save a penny per day, and the total amount saved doubles every day:
after 15 days you will only have $163.84;
after 20 days you will only have $5,242.88;
after 25 days you will only have $167,772.16.

Hope that answers your question. Thanks for asking.

If you want to get exponential results from your marketing efforts, you can reach me at ricknicholson@wizardacademy.com.

Peacock theory

There's a great book called, "Fourth Turning"  written by Neil Howe and William Strauss. It makes predictions based on generational theory. The book was written in 1997 and reading it for a second time in 2017 was interesting to see many of their predictions come true.

This blog isn't about that book. It's about another one. I was looking for a new book on Amazon. Because Strauss and Howe were in my favourites, "The Game" was a suggested reading. The author's name was Neil Strauss. I thought it was from the same co-author as "Fourth Turning", so I picked it up. Hint: It was NEIL Howe and William STRAUSS.

Amazon's logarithm sent me down a rabbit hole that I will never recover from. "The Game" is a detailed story on the world of Pick up artists.

For those who don't know, pick up artists are marketers who go to clubs to pick up women. Essentially the book recounts the author's experience in this subculture.

Although none of them were psychologists, they implemented tools of psychology to influence other people's behaviour - mostly women.

One tool was a theory called Peacock theory.

Here's how it works: Pick up artists go to a club and wear the most outrageous clothes they can find to gather attention.

Imagine going to a club and seeing a guy with a lip ring, a velour hat, a fur boa around his neck, a leather vest, platform shoes, a few tattoos and tight leather jeans.

It would be hard not to wonder who the weirdo is. Is he a rockstar? Is he famous? He oozes confidence as he struts around the club. People talk to him. They want to know him because he might be famous. He's going to make friends. And if he's good at sales, he will take a girl home with him.

I peacock-ed one time on Halloween. I wore what looked like a baby bottle nipple on my head. It was supposed to look like the end of a condom. I was the human Penis. My T-shirt had a safe sex message with another condom behind a plastic window on my chest. I was 21 years old.

Although it was Halloween, I was still embarrassed.

It ended up being a lot of fun. 82 girls approached me that night. It looked funny. I was the only Penis in a room filled with cowboys, hippies, and rappers. Girls wanted to rub my head. It was the most attention I have ever received at the clubs.

That was marketing!!!

Don't look or act like your competitors.
Gather attention.
Attract potential customers to you.
Close the deal.

Peacocking gets attention.

Good marketing works exactly like peacocking.

Tell a compelling story that is "new, exciting or different". If you're story is boring, the PUA's would say you're another AFC (Average Frustrated Chump).

There is an area in the brain called Broca's area. It pays attention to "new, exciting or different". If your message is none of the three, Broca slams the door on the AFC.

AFC's don't get the customer.

When your business looks and acts different,

Some will hate your "style"...
You will be "unforgettable"...

You won't be an AFC anymore.

You'll get the customer's attention.
And if you're good at sales, you'll get the customer...

If you want help getting past Broca's area of the brain and you are ready for your marketing efforts to be unforgettable, you can reach me at ricknicholson@wizardofads.com.



PS. Here's a picture of that human Penis

Who's doing the hiring?

You work constantly at building your business.

Cold calling.
Shaking hands.
Meeting new people.
Facebook posts, tweets, instagram uploads...
Going to those events dubbed as networking events only to walk away with business cards from people trying to do the same thing as you are.

No one has any money.
Every one is working to build a client list.

You find a few clients from this networking, but you are on a hamster wheel. You are going no where. You believe this is progress.

Because BELIEF is all you have left.

Struggling to find enough money to put food on the table, you pretend everything is going well in fear that if the potential customer really knew what was going on, they would never buy from you.

No one wants to work with the struggling supplier!

We take any client who wants our product or service. Money is important and sales are the key to making it.

We find a client who is a pain in the ass.
They struggle to pay our invoice.
Their demands are impossible.
They are intimidating.
They are assholes, for lack of a better word.

A mentor tells you to fire them. You agree but it's hard to let go of that extra income. You worked hard for that sale.

But you didn't qualify them properly.
You qualified them on the basis of need.
Mostly yours.
Mostly financial.

In the service sector, a client needs to be qualified before you take them on. A client is no different than an employee.

In hiring an employee, you research them. You conduct interviews and personality test. You check references and make a decision. Most importantly, you find out if the employee is a good fit for your organization.

Most service sector businesses don't hire their clients. They allow themselves to be hired. By not being selective in their client recruitment, they turn their services into a hired commodity.

A commodity, by definition, does not have qualitative differences to the market.
The cheapest usually wins in the mind of the buyer.
The cheap buyer is usually an unrealistic one.

If you want more success in your client recruitment, don't allow clients to decide if they are going to hire you. You have to decide if there is a fit first.

The goal is not to do business with everybody who needs what you have. The goal is to do business with people who BELIEVE what you BELIEVE.

You are doing the hiring. Find clients who believe what you believe first.


If you want to find clients who believe the same things you do, I can help you with that. It's a simple process but not easy to do. It's one of the things we learn at Wizard Academy. You can reach me at ricknicholson@wizardacademy.com to find out more.

10 reasons why you should not get into business

I am constantly approached for my thoughts around business ideas, startups, and purchases. Most times, someone wants to make the leap from employee to entrepreneur. This leap is a difficult one. Although working for one self can be rewarding. If the motives and conditions are not aligned, the business will likely fail.

According to Michael Gerber in "E-Myth Revisited", 85% of businesses fail in the first five years of operation. There are many reasons for this failure but some of them are related to the person starting the business.

Here are 10 reasons why you should not get into business:

1. Business is tough. It will make your skin crawl because you'll not get enough sleep. You'll constantly worry about the next sale, next invoice, or the next payment. It's a constant struggle to balance income and expenses. And in the early years, you'll have to sacrifice both time and money for a potential dream. There is no guaranteed paycheque every two weeks. If you don't work, you don't get paid. And even when you work, you may not get paid. Your personal finances could suffer. You could lose your home, your savings and even your marriage for this dream. Is it worth that much to you?

2. No balance. There's no room for work-family balance in the beginning. This concept was written by a bunch of new wave hippies who sold hand made hemp figurines out of the back of their Westphalias. If you're going to start a business, you have a choice: have a really small business that you treat like a hobby and pays you as such or have a real business with help from others (employees, contractors, or partners). A real business takes full time dedication and commitment.  Are you willing to give up family vacations, weekends, and your evenings for this business?

3. Getting into business is NOT a career choice. It's a lifestyle choice. The 40 hour work week was developed by socialists trying to create more work for more people. A business is like a child. You have to care, feed and nurture it all the time. You don't take a day off from being a parent, when the kids aren't around. You don't take a day off from being a business owner, when you're not at the office. How much do you value your weekends, evenings and vacations?

4. People are creatures of habit. It is hard to convince them to switch to your new offering. They already have what they want, despite what you may think. The world doesn't need another business until you SHOW the world why you're so special. If you don't know why you are special or don't have time/money to show them, then how will the rest of the world ever know.

5. You get paid last. Every financial guru will tell you how you should be paid first. When you are starting a business, every surviving moment is based on your ability to pay employees, contractors, suppliers, landlords, and the government. After everyone is paid, if there's anything left over you can keep some for yourself ever keeping in mind that there's another round of payments the following week. There's always a reason to keep the cash in the corporate bank account, even if it means you miss your personal mortgage payment.

6. You need to be extremely strong mentally.  There will be times when you'll feel like a punching bag. Everyone wants something from you and you have nothing left to give. You'll feel small, insignificant. You'll feel like a poser trying to MAKE IT, when in fact you're eating cereal for supper because there's nothing else in the cupboard.

7. If you're looking for a retirement plan, don't buy a business. Although some businesses are very lucrative, retirement plans are for people with careers. See number 3. You may want to slow down as you get older, but there's no time for that right now. You're working toward a dream. The best business owners don't have retirement dreams. They have growth dreams.

8. You love to travel. See number 2. If you do an amazing job at running your business, you may have enough money and time to travel. But in the first five years, you shouldn't go far. Your business is an infant. Despite what systems you've created, they may not have been tested in your absence. Before planning that 3 week vacation in Italy, go away for 3 days and see if the phone rings. If you don't call the business and no one calls you, try going away for 5 days. Working up to the three week vacation will take about five years (even if you have an impeccable team).

9. You want to make more money. Money cannot be the driver for you to get into business. Money is a result of a job well done. If you work for money, you're a slave to it. You will struggle for a long time. If you work for a purpose, people will follow you with money in their hands throwing it at your feet to help them. If you're opening a business to make money, do yourself a favour and quit now. It will be difficult for you to succeed with that premise.

10. You will lose friends. You will be seen as weird. The exceptional are not normal. To be normal is to be like everyone else. We are taught to conform. To be successful in business, you should NEVER conform. It's what sets you apart from your competitors. You'll be alone and may lose a few friends along the way. You will be focussed on your work and you will miss some of those social engagements you used to do.  Some friends won't understand. They would never say anything, but they secretly want to see you flat on your face so they can justify their own decisions of conformity. They are not jealous. They are afraid they are making the wrong choices.

I'm the world's first DE-Motivational speaker. If I haven't demotivated you from getting into business after this article, you may be one of those fine breeds that deserve to work for themselves. Good luck to you and I wish you much success.


"No one wants to be average, but everyone wants to be normal". - Roy Williams

Precision decision

Making a decision is hard.

Not making one is painful.

The world rewards those who make decisions and eats up those who don't.

I had a boss who didn't like making decisions. He wanted to do the right things all the time. He analyzed a problem for months before making a decision. He preferred to take the big decisions to focus groups for their approval. He was in a position of leadership but he wasn't one.

He used focus groups as a crutch. He blamed the focus group for poor results and thus protected his job.

He was smarter than the average person. Very well read, he explained and taught the latest business principles to his disciples. I learned a lot from him.

Focus groups are not a good validation for any concept. 

There are two simple reasons: 

1. Perspective

2. Physiology

Let me explain.

1. Perspective

A person's expression of interest can be quite different than what they actually will do. They don't know they are lying. They think they know what they want, until it comes time to actually buy.

As a funny example, I owned two restaurants. When asked why customers chose our place, they talked about the healthy options. The top sold menu item had greasy bacon, greasy sausages, greasy potatoes, greasy ham, two pieces of toast greased with butter, with a couple of fruits as garnish. 

A buyer doesn't generally know what they would do until they have to do it. 

This is called Perspective. Without real conditions, perspective is biased, and probably wrong.

2. Physiology

Humans have two brains. The left brain is responsible for analysis and logic. The right brain takes care of intuition and creativity.

Great ideas are born and nurtured in the right brain. The left brain executes them in a methodical, engineered approach. When a great idea is shared in a group for analysis, the left brain goes to work trying to assess and predict its validity. It's not the left brain's job to assess creativity.

Similar to Perspective, Intuition cannot be challenged until you're in the middle of an important problem. That gut instinct cannot be summoned until it's time for immediate action.
Do you know what you would do or do you think you know what you would do?

Most of us think we know what we would do. Therefore, feedback on a hypothetical situation or product is purely speculation. Speculation boils on past experiences combined with future problems.

It's not wrong to get someone else's opinion, if you are unsure of yourself.
Don't blame them when things go bad. You are responsible not only for your opinions but the opinions of others that you decide to consult with.

Focus group consultation is dangerous.
Great businesses are not managed by committee.
Focus groups give feedback like a committee.
Tasks are handled by committees.
Not leadership.

Leadership is reserved for the bold!

We like working with the bold! If you are one of those leaders who are able to make decisions without the use of committees and you want help with your marketing, you can reach me at ricknicholson@wizardofads.com.

Advertising is exactly like baseball

You need to hit a home run on your next swing or the business is bust.

As a marketer, I don't like home runs.

In baseball, a home run is a high risk, big reward swing.
Three little singles can yield the same result.
Hits are easier to get.
It takes longer to get a run, but once the bases are occupied, more runs come much easier.
In baseball terms, this is called "Small Ball".

"Small Ball" is the best way to make the biggest difference in your marketing efforts. Search for little hits that continue to encourage a customer to buy from your business. Three little hits and you have a run (or a sale).

There are four bases in baseball, so why is three the magic number? In baseball, a player on second base is considered in scoring position. If the third batter gets a hit, there's a good possibility the runner can score from second base.

In advertising, three is also the magic number. A frequency of 3 per week is the objective. Frequency is defined as the number of times a person hears or sees your ad in a week. 3 times per week over a 52 week buy is 156 times. That's lots of potential runs from the customer.

Small ball.

Hitting a homerun is fun and exciting.
You're a star when you hit one.
It clears the bases.
Most home run hitters are also the strike out leaders in baseball.
The best home run hitter in Major League Baseball in 2016 was Mark Trumbo. He hit 47 home runs in 613 at bats. That's a 7% chance of success. He struck out 170 times or 27.7% of the time.

He struck out almost 4 times more often than he hit a home run...

Despite what some advertisers will tell you, home runs are hard.
Hits are not.
Hits come from the crafting the right message and delivering it to the right people at the right time.

The problem with hits is it takes time to be rewarded for the efforts.

Most businesses can't afford to wait. They need results now. They need a home run. Yet they swing with a weak bunt.

Most advertising campaigns fail because the message is weak.

No one can hit a home run with a bunt.

When customers come to me looking for a home run, I send them to someone else. I don't hit home runs.  It's too risky.

I'm evaluated on results. Striking out is not an option. So I don't try.

My goal is to hit singles... a lot of them... It gets better results, in the long run.