You’re guilty.

Sorry.

If you advertise today, you’re guilty until proven innocent.

Every knuckle-dragging, chain-smoking, hard-haired car dealer who ever held their once-in-a-lifetime-semi-annual sale every month?

Every furniture store that goes out of business once a year?

Every jewelry store that hires people to smoke and sit in chairs-in-bags by the road by the mall and hold signs promoting their liquidation sales?

Yeah – they’re the reason we don’t easily trust your company or your advertising.

They’re the marketing equivalent of your mother saying “and you wonder why we can’t have nice things.”

They screwed it up for the rest of us. And they’re everywhere.

So, with 5000 messages whacking you upside the head every day … and with an already skeptical – even suspicious – audience, how can you hope to break through and connect with your message?

Make your offer credible.

Really credible.

My partner and great copywriter, Ryan Patrick, and I wrote this ad I mentioned yesterday that’s working like crazy:

I get it. Makes perfect sense. So let me guarantee it all summer long.

This is Francis Pass – Pass One Hour Heating & Air – you may already know we’re always on time, or you don’t pay a dime, and that we’re offering our magnificent all points summer tune up and efficiency boost for just 89 dollars instead of the regular 115.

A couple folks have feared we’d race through our work to get on to the next job.

Let me assure you – we … do not race … guaranteed.

Let Pass One Hour tune up your system this spring for just 89 bucks. If it breaks down this summer – we will fix it for free. Yep. Boost your system’s efficiency. Get everything tested, tightened, lubricated, calibrated and combobulated.

And if it breaks down this summer. We’ll fix it for free. Day or night. You have my word – which, really, is all any of us has, don’t you think?

If we’re late, it’s free.

(Okay, so you’re probably going to rush through the job, aren’t ya?)

If it breaks, we fix it for free.

(Dang. That’s rad.)

Yep. Rad.

Now, before you run all nilly and willy and copy this ad for your business, know two things:

1) We own it. You don’t. That’s theft, yo.

2) Even if you do steal it, it may not work at all for you.

Why not?

We’ll talk about that tomorrow, along with a few other bits of housekeeping.

I’ll be in St. Louis Wednesday with Ray Seggern and several of my business partners teaching small business owners how to connect more powerfully with consumers.

I imagine we’re going to talk a lot about credibility.

Heck, one of my partners, Tom Wanek, literally wrote the book on the subject.

The phone call I got Tuesday from a heating & air conditioning client got me thinking about credibility on two levels.

We started a new ad for this client on May 7. It’s working like crazy.

Bugnuts batpoop Mad Hatter crazy.

While advertising isn’t an exact science, my eighteen years in the business lead me to two reasons for its success:

1. Credibility.
2. Credibility.

Yep. Both reasons have to do with credibility – one has to do with the credibility of the offer. The other has to do with the credibility of the company.

If both sides – short-term offer and long-term reputation – are sound, it sets a concrete-solid foundation for an arch of success to grow in the middle.

My partners and I are going to teach a bunch of lucky business owners about our principles today.

I’m excited to share them here with you as well.

I think. 

It’s a pretty scary ride to the top of the arch. I’m not sure you can handle it. I couldn’t the first few times I tried.

But, if you’re feeling brave, I’ll share the ad and its secrets on Thursday. I’ll update you on some other stuff on Friday.

In the meantime, order Tom’s book, and if you’re in the St. Louis area, stop by Wednesday at noon and join us.

The view’s terrific from up here.

Photo courtesy of Ray Seggern.

Yesterday, I spoke to a sold-out audience of business owners in Portland.

Here’s what we discussed:

If time permitted, I was going to answer their specific questions, but we covered too much ground in too little time.

However, I promised if they wrote down their questions, I’d answer them in a private video for all of them by the end of next week.

I was floored by the questions. While I save the answers for our Portland attendees, I wanted to share a few of the questions and give you something to think about going into the weekend.

You learn a lot about a person by the quality of her question. If these questions are par for Portland’s course, I’m very impressed with PDX:

What do you think about Groupon-type marketing?

How do you build value in a short amount of time with a transactional client?

How can you win if your potential customer has poor credit and little money?

How do you target relational customers with an internet store?

If there is one question you could ask a potential client to find out if they are a relational or transactional customer, what should that question be?

I’ve heard that if you are no on social media that you will be out of business in 5 years. What are your thoughts on this?

After you posted the words “We invest slowly and simply,” you stated “we buy only what we can own.” Can you explain what that statement about “owning” means? How do you own radio real estate?

Is using the voice of an endorsement or talent a good idea?

If I choose to use a talent, how much freedom do I give them with talking points and script?

Can you brand yourself as a sales rep?

What is the formula of knowing how to own a radio station, or even just a day part? How do I know when I have?

Who was the person you quoted at the end of your presentation? 

Okay, I’ll share the answer to the last one:

A special thanks to Jill, Kendra and Allyson from Ruby Receptionists for coming over to talk about their obsession with WowWorthy customer service.

And a special thanks to our friends and clients at Roof Life of Oregon for coming over to listen.

Thanks for having me as your guest. We’ll see you again in October!

I’m reading his new book – Insanely Simple: The Obession That Drives Apple’s Success.

The book deconstructs Apple’s success in a first-hand account from someone who was in the trenches of Apple’s marketing for years. It’s tremendous and fascinating.

In it, there’s a quote from Jobs that struck me yesterday:

People think focus means saying yes to the thing you’ve got to focus on. But that’s not what it means at all. It means saying no to the hundred other good ideas that there are. You have to pick carefully. I’m actually as proud of the things we haven’t done as the things we have done. Innovation is saying no to a thousand things.

Isn’t that something? On the plane, I read it over and over and over again.

Focus is about saying ‘no.’

Not just to bad ideas. To good ones.

Focus is about knowing what to leave out – even when it’s really flippin’ good.

It’s hard – whether you’re building a staff or starting a new company or writing a book or giving a workshop.

I’m doing all four of these things. Right now. That quote hit me like a shovel upside.

Another brilliant thinker, Michele Miller, used to tell me to wake up in the morning and figure out what to say ‘no’ to each day.

Something to think about today – for you and me.

To what will you say “no” today?

Pick carefully.

Next week, I’m going to Portland to be a guest of the Portland Area Radio Council. The day before the free public workshop, I’ll deliver two private workshops to a couple hundred media reps.

As part of my workshops, I always answer questions. By getting the questions in advance, it gives me time to prepare meatier, more valuable, more specific answers.

I’m always excited to get the questions. I’m fascinated by questions. I think, oftentimes, they’re more revealing than the answers.

Want to know what’s on the mind of Portland’s most astute radio advertising representatives?

• How do you deal with a business that says it can’t compete with a bigger business because they don’t have the funds to out buy share of voice on the radio?
• Or a specific locations says I don’t need radio cause I only draw people from my local area radio reaches to many people that are not my target?
• My budget is small I am not sure that radio will work because I only have $1000 to $2000 to spend?
• How do you know I have a good schedule when I am so small?
• I use direct mail and social media because I have a specific targeted audience?
• It’s radio dead?
• How do I get in into a real conversation with a business owner when they have their walls up because they see me as a sales person?
• What do I do if my new client isn’t seeing results?
• How do I keep clients on the radio for a long time as my client?
• How do I get over cost per point and focus on my radio’s audience?

If you want the answers to these, you’ll have to come to Portland.

How about you? Got any questions for me? I might just answer them next week if you’ll give me permission to publicly post the answer. They don’t have to be media questions.

“Hey Tim … about that ad you posted on the blog yesterday …”

Yes.

“The one that promoted your trip to Portland?”

Yes.

“I don’t think it was very good.”

Really? Why not?

“Well, umm, it wasn’t very funny.”

No, I guess it wasn’t.

“Are two people doing, like, dialogue back and forth?”

Nope. Just one person.

“It didn’t have any sound effects or anything?”

Nope.

“Did you use a funny voice or something? Like a character, maybe?”

Nope. Just me, talking.

“How about music? What kind of music did you put underneath your voice?”

I didn’t put any music underneath my voice. I just talked.

“What?? But every ad has music under it.”

Oh.

“I don’t know how to tell you this, Tim, but I don’t think there’s any chance that ad is going to win an award.”

Oh.

“It’s not very creative.”

I see.

“I mean … how do I put this, Tim … it doesn’t even sound like an ad!”

Now you’re finally beginning to catch on! I would invite you to come to Portland next week to learn more about ad writing, but the event sold out yesterday.

“Oh.”

Shoot the pink elephant in the room. Sorry, pink elephant.

Next week, I’m going to Portland to deliver a free public workshop sponsored by the Portland Area Radio Council.

There’s no sales pitch. People have a hard time believing that, you know. We’re so accustomed to nothing being free-without-strings that a message – especially a message from a marketing guy – is NOT to be trusted.

So, why ignore that fact? Why not anticipate that objection and address it.

Why, that’s what we did, by golly, with our most recent radio ad for the seminar. Here’s the copy:

So, we’re about two-thirds sold out, but a lot of people still don’t believe there’s no sales pitch – I get it. Believe me.

This is Tim Miles, Wizard of Ads. I don’t solicit business. My company works strictly through repeat and referral business – and when I come to a city – like I’m coming to Portland on May 3rd – there’s a chance somebody among the 100 people there likes what I have to say about the principles of good advertising enough – that they ask about hiring my firm.

That’s it.

Since 2008, every one of our home services clients has enjoyed double-digit growth. We’ve worked with healthcare, education, retail, automotive – just about everything under the sun in the last twenty years.

And the radio stations bringing me in know we’ve had a ton of success using radio among other media. BUT – they could only bring me to town on the condition that they, too, didn’t try to sell anyone anything. May 3rd.

This is your brain on marketing. 3 hours. Free. No sales pitch. About 30 seats left. Learn how to use radio and make it work.

Learn how to make marketing work better for your business. Visit justonewins.com – before it sells out. Justonewins.com.

Anticipate objections. Overcome them. When I wrote this ad last Thursday, there were 30 seats left.

We should sell out sold out today.

Hunt the pink elephant. Shoot the pink elephant. Sorry, pink elephant.

Most listen.

I just want you to email me your proposal, please. We have a method. We have a process for evaluation.

When I ask you to email me your proposal, your next email better have an attachment with your proposal.

Not:

“Tim, Contrary to popular belief, AT&T is more than a “phone book” company. In this evolving marketplace we have adapted different strategies that involve multiple media choices for our customers. I think it would be best to have a conversation about our suite of products and how you see them fitting into your plans?”

Where have you gone, Gary Larson? A nation turns its lonely eyes to you. Woo woo woo.

Things will come up that require a real designer. Step away from Publisher and ClipArt and invest the money to have a professional do it faster and better.

I tell my clients: You’re welcome to work with one of our preferred designers on projects that require one, but I also appreciate wanting to work with someone local. Since we’re helping you craft the message, we will be fine working with a good, local designer who understands deadlines and directions.

If you want a local freelance designer, put the following ad on Craigslist.

Wanted:
Freelance graphic designer to help with ongoing projects for a local [your business category] company.

Throughout the year, we need the occasional postcard, sell sheet, newsletter and other design projects completed professionally and by deadline.

We pay on time. We’ll pay well for the right person.

We’re okay if you’re a little different. So are we. We don’t want our ads to look like anybody else’s. We don’t even like them to look like ads.

Creativity is a huge plus, but so is professionalism. We’re running a business, not an artists’ colony.

If you’re creative, professional, low-maintenance and would like to work with us, please send your rates, a link to your work and at least two references to ______.

Do not consider anyone without samples and at least two references. Call the references! Ask about responsiveness and attention to detail. Beware of theoretical work – unless you’re willing to work with a student (which can be cheap and great but is a risk and it requires a little more direction and confidence in knowing what you want).

Also – don’t be afraid to fire quickly. There will be several more where the first person came from. If it’s not a good fit for you, or they have a problem with deadlines or listening or taking direction or seem to have misrepresented themselves with their resume/portfolio/references, break up and try again.

That’s my advice. What do you think? Any other tips or suggestions for owner-operated companies who need occasional help? (You might be, but I’m not a fan of elance.)

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