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Author: Phil Wrzesinski

Phil Wrzesinski is the National Sales Manager of HABA USA toy company, a Former Top-Level, Award-Winning Retailer, a Thought-Provoking Speaker, a Prolific Author, a 10-Handicap Golfer, an Entertaining Singer/Songwriter, and a Klutz Kid who enjoys anything to do with the water (including drinking it fermented with hops and barley), anything to do with helping local independent businesses thrive, and anything that puts a smile on peoples' faces.

Book Excerpt: Most Ads Suck – Chapter 1

Foreword

Chapter 1 – Most Ads Suck

“Every customer is the right customer. What you’re looking for is the right moment.” – Roy H. Williams

You’re in a room with friends, a plate of nachos in your hands. It’s the first Sunday in February. It’s a Super Bowl Party. Everyone is glued to the TV. Groans and high-fives and laughter fill the air. Some of your friends are second-guessing every move, every decision on the screen. Everyone is cheering for their favorite, even making excuses when it doesn’t go so well.

Then the game comes back on and you head to the bathroom then back to the kitchen to refill your nacho plate.

Once a year you watch the ads. One night out of three hundred and sixty-five you don’t fast forward or change the channel or—in many cases—even care about the actual programming, just the ads in between.

You remember the good ones from years past. You remember how a few years ago the Budweiser Armed Forces in Airport commercial made you feel when everyone started clapping slowly, then faster until the whole airport was standing and applauding the soldiers walking through. You remember the kid looking you in the eyes and telling you he wanted to work in middle management even though you can’t recall which employment service did that ad and which one had the monkeys in the office.

You also remember groaning at some of the really bad ones, wondering how in the world that ad got approved for production, let alone a multi-million-dollar TV slot. You wish your own business was like one of these big companies with millions of dollars to waste on advertising knowing that in two weeks no one would remember and you would still have tens of millions to spend on the boring, crappy ads everyone runs the rest of the year.

Why is that? Why, you wonder, do all these companies spend so much time, money and creativity on their Super Bowl ads only to run them once a year and leave you with the same tired sales-pitchy stuff the rest of the year? While you’re at it, you wonder why so many companies spend so much time, money and creativity only to miss the mark by a wide margin. Puppymonkeybaby? Really, Mountain Dew? That’s the best you could come up with?

Your friends tell you they’ve switched to satellite radio. Too many ads on regular radio, they say. Other friends tell you the greatest invention is the DVR or Netflix or Hulu. Don’t have to suffer through so many ads, they say. They do have a point. You seem to recall some study about how you are bombarded with over 5,000 advertising messages a day. You’re not sure if that number is right, but you do know that everywhere you turn there is another promotional message staring at you. Heck, every sub-segment of the Super Bowl was “brought to you by …” some auto/food/beer/insurance/drug company.

Maybe there are too many ads.

But there you are on the first Sunday in February, ignoring the brought-to-you-by announcements and even the game itself, and instead comparing notes with your friends on which ads were the funniest, the most moving, the most memorable.

Suddenly it dawns on you. The real problem with advertising isn’t that there are too many ads. The real problem is that most ads suck. If they were more creative or funny like the ones you saw tonight, you’d pay attention. If they were entertaining, you wouldn’t be switching channels. If they touched your heart, you might actually take action.

You think you’ve figured it out. You think you’ve figured out what famed retailer John Wanamaker couldn’t when he famously said, “Half of my ad budget is wasted. The problem is I don’t know which half.” It’s the half with the lousy, looks-like-everyone-else, boring, stupid ads.

You want to shout it from the rooftop. You’ve solved the advertising equation. The first half, at least. You start thinking how fun it would be to meet with the advertising executives of every major company out there and tell them to quit spending all their money on Super Bowl ads and instead spend that money to make the rest of their ads better.

Then you wonder. “Wait, do I have it all wrong? Is it really that simple? That these billion-dollar companies with their million-dollar advertising budgets and their million-dollar ad agencies with all their fancy metrics just don’t get it?”

Yes, you do have it right. Yes, you understand what many ad agencies and major corporations don’t. You get it because you’re the consumer. You know what works on you and what doesn’t. You know what gets you to tune in and tune out.

You’re also smart enough to realize that some ads just aren’t speaking to you. You still appreciate clever writing, creative copy, and smart messages. If they’re entertaining enough, you’ll tolerate ads written for someone other than you. But your internal filter shuts everything down as soon as it looks, sounds, or smells like the plethora of phony, deceiving, too-good-to-be-true ads out there.

You’re about to start making a list of the worst offenders, the ones whose offices you’ll visit first to tell them about your new revelation, when it dawns on you. You know what they shouldn’t be doing.

But if they ask you how to make their ads more interesting and memorable and effective, you don’t know where to start.

Hmmm …

-Phil Wrzesinski
www.PhilsForum.com

PS Chapter 2 – It’s the Message, Not the Media

Book Excerpt: Most Ads Suck – The Foreword

Foreword

Who will use this book? Anyone who writes content to persuade including web content, ad copy, magazine articles, emails and newsletters, and even speeches. If you write to persuade, you’ll find this book relevant and useful. If you write to connect, you’ll find this book relevant and useful. If you write to spark change, you’ll find this book relevant and useful.

The character who leads you through this book is You. You’re like me in your curiosity and desire to learn. That’s why you’re reading this in the first place. You lead yourself through the first eight chapters discovering new ideas and revelations as you go. I will take over in Chapter 9 to show you how the principles you learn in this book apply to all different types of businesses, including yours.

You will still need to bring a few tools to the table to make this book work best for you. Most importantly, you have to know your Core Values. For the purpose of this book, you will have the values of Freedom, Curiosity, Diligence, and Education. You will use your own Curiosity to explore the concepts of how to make your advertising more effective. You will use Diligence to do the research you need to give yourself the tools (Education) to write your own content in your own words. That will give you the Freedom to succeed in your business without being led blindly down fruitless paths to more boring, useless, ineffective advertising. My own Core Values are Having Fun, Helping Others, Education, and Nostalgia. See if you can spot them throughout this book.

I first presented this information at the Jackson Retail Success Academy™ back in 2011. Fourteen frying pans later, it is an audience favorite because the applications are endless. You will find yourself using the principles in this book for far more than advertising. You’ll see the influence of this book in all your writings, presentations, sales calls, and trainings. I have a ten-minute TED-style talk centered around how Chapter 4 applies to all levels of communication.

I want you to share this book. I want you to dog-ear some pages, underline some passages, write your own notes in the margins. Then pass this book along to your friends in a similar position. I expect you to take exceptions to different principles based on your own experiences. That’s why I call them principles instead of rules. (And also because you’re the kind of person who hates the word “rules” and would immediately try to find ways to break them.)

I especially expect or even encourage you to find fault with many of the sample ads in the back of the book. That’s okay. As Roy H. Williams taught me many years ago, an advertisement is like a magnet. Its ability to attract is in exact proportion to its ability to repel. If you feel any emotion at all towards the ad samples, I will have done my job. If you really don’t like them, I challenge you to write better ones. Send them to me. I would love to read them.

-Phil Wrzesinski
www.PhilsForum.com

PS Tomorrow we begin with Chapter 1 – Most Ads Suck

Launching a New Book on Advertising

Three years ago, right after closing down Toy House, I wrote my fourth book titled, “Most Ads Suck (But Yours Won’t)”. It was going to be the second signature book to augment my speaking career. (My other two books were written for the toy industry and for expectant daddies.)

My plan was to print 1,000 copies like I had with my previous books, and sell them from my website and the back of the room after speaking gigs. I did that quite successfully with Hiring and the Potter’s Wheel.

Unfortunately, with the store closed and speaking gigs not coming in as quickly as I hoped, I only raised enough money to get the book edited, not printed. I kept saying to myself, “When I get the money, I’ll print it.” I’ve even had it listed on my website for almost three years waiting for that day.

I am tired of sitting on this book.

Since this book will more positively impact your bank account than mine, I am going to publish it as a PDF and do with it what I do with most of my best material …

I am going to give it away FREE!

Over the next few weeks I will publish each chapter right here in this blog. At the end I will upload the entire book as a 40-page PDF on the Free Resources page of my website.

Whether you use traditional forms of advertising like print, radio, TV, or billboard, or you use digital approaches such as social media and email, the contents of this book will help you create the messages that get seen and heard, get remembered, and get acted upon.

If you write to persuade, this book is for you.

There is a Foreword. There are eight short Chapters teaching you six principles. There is one really long Chapter of Samples at the end to show you how to use those principles. (I might split that last chapter up over several posts. We’ll see how it goes.)

Check your inbox. We’ll start with the Foreword tomorrow and go from there.

-Phil Wrzesinski
www.PhilsForum.com

PS The back cover of the book was going to ask you these questions …

  • Have you ever gone to a Super Bowl Party just to watch the ads?
  • Have you ever wondered why you remember some ads (but not the companies who ran them)?
  • Have you ever run an ad based on a template the ad salesperson uses for all his clients?
  • Have you ever felt like John Wanamaker and didn’t know which ads weren’t working?
  • Do you write content to persuade?

This book is for you!

Great Video on Advertising During a Crisis

Last night, while hunkered down watching TV, I was amazed at how quickly some brands have reacted to the current situation and revised their ads. It was refreshing.

If you are doing any mass advertising (radio, TV, billboards, etc.), I’d like to suggest to you two things:

  1. Don’t stop or pullback your ads. The businesses who keep their name out there during downturns tend to be the ones who recover fastest when things get better.
  2. Do change your message. You need to be sensitive to what is happening around you.

Here is a great video from the Wizard of Ads on how to change that message during these times.

Hopefully you have the 18 minutes to spare. It will be worth your time.

Wishing you all the best!

-Phil Wrzesinski
www.PhilsForum.com

PS Some of the best innovations come out of crisis. Uber and Airbnb both spawned in the housing crisis of 2008-09. I am seeing several retailers become creative and innovative during these last few weeks. I hope to share some of their stories with you later.

Impact & Repetition – Keys to Better Training

If I were to ask you where you were when you first heard about the Twin Trade Towers getting hit on 9/11, you could tell me instantly with exacting detail. But if I were to ask you for details about New Year’s Eve 2006, it might take you a little longer to pull those details together (and likely some of those details are a little fuzzy).

What is it about our memory that makes some things stick so much better than other things?

Two factors—Impact and Repetition.

IMPACT

The events of 9/11 only happened once, but they were incredibly impactful. It was something new, unexpected, shocking, and emotional. Just like the Kennedy Assassination, the Moon Landing, and the Challenger Explosion, it was an event that had a lasting impact and we all remember where we were when it happened.

(Fascinating side story: my mom was in the exact same classroom on the University of Michigan campus when Kennedy was shot as I was when the Challenger exploded.)

Chances are, New Year’s Eve 2006 wasn’t nearly as impactful for most of you, so even though it was more recent, your memory isn’t as sharp.

The reason I bring this up is that you will be tasked with teaching your team several skills throughout the course of 2020. How well they remember those skills will dramatically impact your sales and profits.

One way you can make your staff trainings more memorable is to make them more impactful. Do something new, unexpected, even shocking. Do something fun (fun is an emotion, equally as powerful as sadness). Do something different.

Not only will it make your training more enjoyable, it will make it more memorable.

REPETITION

One of my favorite quotes is from Percy C. Buck, a Professor of Music at University of London, who wrote in the book “Psychology of Musicians”,

“An amateur practises until he can do a thing right, a professional until he can’t do it wrong.”

This explains precisely why I am not a professional golfer. It also explains why most training programs fail. We often only train to the level of amateur—until we can finally do it right.

Repetition is an important part of memory. Have you ever wondered why you can sing along to songs on the radio you never even tried to learn? Repetition. When you study for an exam, what do you do? Read your notes several times? Repetition.

Repetition of action teaches muscle memory. Repetition of thought trains the brain.

As you Hire Traits and Train Skills, keep in mind that the two most important elements in your training program need to be Impact and Repetition. That’s how you get those skills to stick.

-Phil Wrzesinski
www.PhilsForum.com

PS One way to make your staff training more impactful is to download and follow the steps in my FREE eBook Staff Meetings Everyone Wants to Attend. Whenever possible, always choose the most fun option.

PPS These same two principles—Impact & Repetition—also make your advertising more memorable. Who knew? Oh, yeah, you did because I’ve told you this several times before.

One Simple Change to Make 2020 Your Best Year Ever!

My New Year’s Resolution is to get back to posting blogs regularly. Now with a Christmas Season under my belt in my new role, I have a little better handle on the time requirements of this job and should be able to fit some more writing into it.

Here is the resolution I want you to adopt …

Hire for Traits, Train for Skills.

Having hired hundreds of retail employees over the years, I have learned four truths:

  1. Your business will only be as good as the staff you have running and working in it.
  2. People do not change from their true character. They may hide it for a while, but it always shows itself.
  3. You can never do enough training.
  4. A team that shares your Core Values will work harder and be more loyal than a team that doesn’t.

If you’re really good at what you do, hire the right kind of people and teach them what you know. If you’re not that good, hire the right kind of people and then go learn what to teach them. You’ll be surprised how fast you become “really good at what you do” when you have to teach it to others.

Happy New Year!

-Phil Wrzesinski
www.PhilsForum.com

PS In case you haven’t figured it out, this blog and website are all about helping you be “really good at what you do.” Check out the Free Resources. They will shorten your learning curve by decades.

PPS Not sure how to Hire for Traits? Check out this post and the one after it.

The October 1st List

Do you have an October 1st List? If you’re a holiday-driven retailer, you should.

What is an October 1st List?

An October 1st List is all the things you need to remember to do for the busy fourth quarter. It is a growing list, one you add to each fourth quarter when something comes up that you forgot to do.

An October 1st List includes things you need to buy like:

  • Place orders for all those 4th Quarter Only items
  • Double check all post-dated shipping orders you placed at a show this summer to make sure it is what you really need
  • Identify and re-order the Must-Haves, the Hot Sellers, and the giveaways you’ll need for your events
  • Stock up on extra bags, giftwrap, tissue, bows, tape, etc.
  • Order extra blank name tags for seasonal help
  • Salt for the parking lot and sidewalks

An October 1st List includes things you need to schedule like:

  • Carpet cleaning
  • Holiday Window decorator
  • Snow plowing for parking lot/Taking the snow blower in for preseason tuneup
  • Special Guests for events and trainings
  • Radio deejays for events
  • Charity events
  • Time for interviewing, doing background checks, hiring, and training seasonal staff

An October 1st List includes reminders like:

  • Remind the staff to get flu shots
  • Remind the staff to order new shirts for the season
  • Remember to buy more coffee for the break room
  • Remind staff to create new lists of suggested products

An October 1st List includes things you need to update like:

  • Refresh all printed signs in the store
  • Update hours on Website, Google, and Facebook
  • Re-evaluate Team Member Handbook before seasonal help starts
  • Replace welcome mats by front door
  • Remove summer flowers in pot by front door and replace with fall decorations

An October 1st List is that final reminder to make sure all your i’s and t’s have been dotted and crossed.

There is nothing more frustrating than getting into the busy season and finding out there is something you forgot to do.

So today, October 1st, start writing down all those reminders of things you’ve forgotten in the past. Start writing down all those items on the never-ending to-do list that are strictly fourth-quarter oriented. And keep the list handy to write down things you forgot as the season progresses. Next year, the list should be pretty solid.

“Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.” -Seneca

The fourth quarter starts today. May it be a lucky one for you!

-Phil Wrzesinski
www.PhilsForum.com

PS I got this idea from a friend who had an October 1st List for himself with things like wash the windows, prep the garden for winter, take the snow blower in for preseason service, etc. He said every year around Thanksgiving, just as his life was getting hectic, there would be something he forgot to do, so he started making a list. As a small business owner, you wear so many hats that lists like this are essential.

The Conundrum of Choice

I used to advertise the heck out of the fact Toy House had the largest selection of toys under one roof of any store in the area. In our heyday we had over twice the selection of a Toys R Us and five times the selection of the Walmarts, Targets, and Kmarts of the world. Back in the 80’s and 90’s when bigger was better, this seemed to be the perfect calling card.

And it was—at least for drawing traffic.

Paradox of Choice cover.jpgSometimes, however, the super large selection was also a detriment to sales. Having too many options can lead to Analysis Paralysis. Barry Schwartz called this the Paradox of Choice (in the book by the same name).

While we like having freedom of choice, when we have too many choices, the process of selection bogs down.

I was thinking about this the other day while I was out shopping. I needed a closet deodorizer. The store I was in offered nine or ten different options. I had no clue. They all seemed to do about the same thing. I didn’t recognize any of the brands so I made my decision based on price.

I eliminated the most expensive item figuring that it probably wasn’t any better than the others, especially since it didn’t have a brand name I recognized. I threw out the least expensive item figuring the company probably cut corners to make it, so it likely wouldn’t be as effective or last as long. I then chose something toward the bottom of the prices left, figuring they were all similar, why spend any more?

Is that the way you want customers shopping in your store?

It was the perfect example of the paradox of choice. Had there only been two or three items, I would have studied the differences between them and chosen a product based on features and benefits. But with nine items, instead of seeing differences, I only saw similarities, so I based my decision on brand and price.

This is the Trader Joe’s philosophy …

Limit the selection to make it easier for the customer to choose based on the criteria of the product.

From this you could conclude that it is better to curate a great selection than to just offer more than your competitors. In many ways you would be right.

There is still something to be said, however, for having the largest selection. It is and always has been a traffic draw. Stores like Lowe’s, Home Depot, Staples, and JoAnn’s still rely on the perception of unlimited choices to drive their business.

The trick to making it work is having a staff that can curate your large selection that drew your customers in into a smaller selection from which they can make a choice.

I worked with my staff to do the following:

  • Ask questions why the customer wants a particular item. What are they trying to accomplish?
  • Curate our selection down to the two or three best “solutions”
  • Always show the best solution first, regardless of price or budget. Often a customer will bust the budget for the item that best fits her needs

When you have too many choices, while the traffic it draws is nice, you’re forcing your customers to shop based on brand and price (and often the lower prices win).

When you curate the choices, you help your customers shop based on features and benefits (and often the item offering the most benefits wins).

See the difference?

-Phil Wrzesinski
www.PhilsForum.com

PS If you are a smaller store, by all means curate the selection in advance, but if you have the space, don’t be afraid to have several choices based on the different “solutions” they provide. Just make sure your staff knows how to curate the choices down for each individual customer. Remember, everyone walking through your door has a different problem to solve.

A Simple Game to Help You Improve Your Store

I was visiting a good friend and toy store owner in Lawrence, KS (The Toy Store – you should visit if you’re ever in the area) and she asked me, “Does visiting stores like mine make you miss being on the retail side?”

My answer was an immediate and definitive No.

Oh, I get inspired when I see fabulous stores done well like The Toy Store. I love walking through a store thinking, “I could have done that at Toy House.” But while visiting great stores and thinking about what I could have done is something that happens all the time, it isn’t the good stores that make me miss being a retailer.

It is the bad ones that get me going.

The game I play the most is inspired by the famous Dr. Seuss book, If I Ran the Zoo. When I walk through a bad retail store my mind quickly goes to, “If I ran this store, the first thing I would do is …”

It takes a lot of hubris to play a game like this. First, to call a retailer “bad” that is still open in today’s retail climate is fairly judgmental. Second, to think I could make it better takes another level of arrogance. Yet, it is a game and an arrogance I would actually encourage you to have.

It will only help your own business.

First, if you’re playing this game, you’re judging retailers against a standard—your own. Since we all think our store is pretty good, we measure all other stores against what we are doing. So it causes you to truly evaluate your own standards and find ways to raise your own bar.

Second, as you think about what you would do first with someone else’s business, you’re reinforcing what is working for your business. You’re most often going to focus on your own strengths, the things you do that set you apart. Keep that in mind the next time you’re putting together a marketing message. It is the things you do differently that will resonate most with potential new customers.

Third, even though it takes an arrogance to think you can make someone else’s business better, it also lends itself to humility because you get into a mindset of improvement. You get into a mindset of looking for things that can get better. You look more critically at your own business.

I encourage you to play this game. Get someone else to play it with you. Take your manager to visit a few stores to play this game. Then, in the middle of your discussion, change the name of the store you’re discussing to your store, and see how the ideas flow.

The good stores like The Toy Store are fun to visit. The stores that need some work, however, are the ones that get my juices flowing. They’ll get yours flowing, too, when you play this game.

-Phil Wrzesinski
www.PhilsForum.com

PS There is value from visiting great stores, too. I wrote a post about it here. Your best lessons come from the best and worst retailers you visit. Average stores can only teach you how to be like everyone else. Visit the best and worst retailers out there. Then apply what you learn. The desire to get better will keep you humble and grounded even as your store starts to rise.

Inefficiencies Can Derail the Experience

The line didn’t seem that long. I’ve been in longer lines waiting for food. The menu showed three lunch options, likely for efficiency’s sake. I expected the line to move along quite rapidly.

Twenty-five minutes later the line felt more like eternity.

There was one line and two windows (which is the most efficient way even if it “feels” longer). That wasn’t the problem. Shortly into our wait we saw the problem. Once you ordered at one of the two windows you had to wait to the side of the window until your tray arrived several minutes later.

With every group that ordered, I watched them do the dance with the next in lines as the food trays were shepherded out the window. Whose order was whose? Which way do I go? How do I get past the crowd at the window to get to the seating area? Where is the ketchup stand?

The hardest part was the watching and waiting, seeing there was a more efficient way.

With two windows it would have been easy to take the order at the first window and pick up the food at the second window. The line headed toward the first window anyway. The second window was closer to the ketchup and the seating. Those who had ordered wouldn’t feel like they were inconveniencing the line behind them while they waited for their food.

This was one place where an assembly line style of serving would have made total sense.

Here’s the kicker. I was standing in line at the lunch stand at Greenfield Village, part of the Henry Ford Museum campus. I’m pretty sure Henry Ford is kinda known for taking the assembly line concept to a whole new level?

One would think they could take some inspiration from the man whose name was on the building.

The lesson in all this is that you should always be looking at ways to improve what you do. Find the inefficiencies and decide whether they are better or worse for the customer. If worse, look around you for inspiration how to fix them.

Henry Ford got his inspiration for the assembly line from the Chicago meat cutters and their disassembly line. When I needed a better way to hire and train my staff I got my inspiration from the potter. When radio stations had unsold ad slots, they learned from the airlines “standby” passengers.

Your business has inefficiencies, some that quietly annoy your customers. The lunch line at Greenfield Village fortunately wasn’t enough to ruin an otherwise fabulous visit to a fabulous place, but it was enough to make me write about it. And that should be reason enough for you to find those annoyances in your business and clean them up.

-Phil Wrzesinski
www.PhilsForum.com

PS There is an ice cream place here in town with the same two-window inefficiency. A clerk leans through a tiny window to write your order on a scratch pad. Then you step to the side and wait while she takes the next person’s order. Two or three orders later, there is a crowd hovering around the window waiting to grab whatever cold creamy concoction might get thrust out. Order at one window, pick it up at the next. The fast food joints have all learned this. Why can’t the others?

PPS If you get a chance to visit Greenfield Village (and I highly recommend it!!) make sure you stop by the Working Farm. It doesn’t get the hype of the Model T Ride or Thomas Edison’s Menlo Park recreation, but it was my favorite stop in the village. (Just plan a few extra minutes for the lunch line near Main Street.)