From the monthly archives:

June 2005

The Seller Simply Becomes the Client

June 30, 2005

TheatremasksI hope their check doesn’t bounce …

At my day job this week, I was contracted to write a series of recruitment ads for our parent company.  They’re looking to add two people to their advertising sales team.

They gave me their necessary information.  One went so far as to say "it didn’t have to be fancy since it was just a simple action ad."

Not simple.  Shouldn’t be, anyway.

Ads run by radio stations for radio stations should be the best ads on radio stations. 

Right? 

(On a side note, I recently came across two ads for another radio company in the Sunday classifieds … what does that say about their own faith in their own medium?)

So, here are the three we designed to rotate equally beginning this weekend (holidays - best times to run effective recruitment advertising) on each of the Zimmer stations.

Download zrg_recruit_new_beginnings_mix.mp3

Download zrg_recruit_first_yes_mix.mp3

Download zrg_recruit_first_lesson_mix.mp3

The approval feedback cameback to the tune of "Oh My God!!" and "Those Are Great!!!" and "Simply Awesome!!!!"

Thank you.  We do what we do.

But, what they didn’t get on a conscious level was that each manager to whom I submitted for approval clicked with different things in each ad.

Not simple.  Shouldn’t be, anyway.

If you took the time to download and listen, you noticed that I took the time to interview six different successful advertising folks already with the company.  Did I pick them at random?  Nope.  I chose them on the basis of varying communication preferences and psychological types.

Then, I included phrases from each type in each ad so at least something triggers people of like-type more powerfully than the rest.  It makes each ad feel like it’s speaking right to you.

If you’re familiar with Myers-Briggs, listen back to the ads and notice comments intended to click with SJ, SP, NT, and NF, or if you know Bolton’s work, click with Analytical, Expressive, Driver, and Amiable.

Yes, they’re authentic.  Yes, they say the same thing different ways.

No, they’re not simple.  Shouldn’t be, should they?

If you live in the central Missouri area, and you proudly wear curiosity and courage on your sleeve, then I urge you to step out on the skinny end of the branch and call Ashley.  Previous media or even sales experience is not a prerequisite.  In fact, depending on that previous experience it may hurt your chances.  Zimmer Radio Group’s confident enough in their training that they’ll take over where your parents left off.  Thank you.

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What Will Your Mom Say?

June 29, 2005

Mullis1     "By the time I got back home, my house was completely surrounded by print and broadcast reporters and camera crews.  As it turned out, none of the other Nobel laureates that year were serious about surfing, and "Surfer Wins Nobel Prize" made headlines.

    Friends began arriving with champagne, and the party began.  That afternoon I finally reached my mother.  I wanted to tell her to stop sending me articles about DNA, since I had now won the Nobel Prize for my expertise on that subject.  My mother often mailed articles from Reader’s Digest about advances in DNA chemistry.  No matter how I tried to explain it to her, she never grasped the concept that I could have been writing those articles, that something I had invented made most of those DNA discoveries possible.  She probably hoped that winning the Nobel Prize might enable me to be published someday in Reader’s Digest." 

- Wizard Academy Graduate Kary Mullis, on winning the Nobel Prize in chemistry in 1993, in his book, Dancing Naked in the Mind Field

What will your mom say?  Or, with my empathy, what do you imagine she’d say?

While you may never stand atop a stage in Stockholm, one day they will call you Laureate. 

Have you imagine-planned the party celebrating you?

How does it feel?  Who’s they?  Does it go on for two hours or two days?  Will local law-enforcement ultimately be called in?

What will your mom say?

But, most importantly, when will it happen and what caused the corks on the champagne bottles to pop?  What contribution did you make to better?

It strikes me goofy that business owners inquire about our services on a daily basis, yet have no answer to those last three questions.
Laoying3
What, specifically, will cause you to celebrate?  When’s the ceremony?

I’d love to be there. 

Can I bring my ma?

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Today's Chewing Gum for the Brain

June 28, 2005

"I’ve found that the main benefit of living on the edge is that there’ s much more room out here."

- Dave Young

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A Virtual Bridging …

June 27, 2005

Great, great, so-great-I’ll-actually-send-to-my-wife-great story from our friends and partners at Future Now:

Are you a Customer Delighting SUPERstar?

While taking a stroll with TheWoman this weekend, we decide to amble into The Gap.
After finding some shorts she desperately had to have, we were
disappointed to learn they didn’t have the colors she had chosen, in
her correct size.  The sales associate checked the stockroom, and then
the inventory of the surrounding stores, and came up with nothing
within 20 miles of our location.

Now here’s where the story gets
interesting.


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The Left … err … West Wing

June 24, 2005

Ndvd_025In the interest of equal time, I offer evidence from a teleplay both praised and damned for its liberal views.  In a 2001 episode, "War Crimes," of The West Wing, the deeply gifted Aaron Sorkin gave voice to Martin Sheen’s character, President Jed Bartlett:

Words!  Words - when spoken out loud for the sake of performance - are music.  They have rhythm and pitch and timbre and volume.  These are the properties of music, and music has the ability to find us and move us and lift us up in ways that literal meaning can’t.

Who will your words find today?  Should you get a captive audience at some point this weekend, will you take the opportunity to move them and left them up?

I wish that for you.

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The Author's Voice

June 22, 2005

June 12, 1987:


          Are these the beginnings of profound changes in the Soviet state? Or are they token gestures, intended to raise false hopes in the West, or to strengthen the Soviet system without changing it? We welcome change and openness; for we believe that freedom and security go together, that the advance of human liberty can only strengthen the cause of world peace. There is one sign the Soviets can make that would be unmistakable, that would advance dramatically the cause of freedom and peace.       

General Secretary Gorbachev, if you seek peace, if you seek prosperity for the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, if you seek liberalization: Come here to this gate!

Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate!

Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!


I don’t know your political leanings, nor do I care.

I defy your arguments, though, should you think that Ronald Reagan was no less than one of the five most dynamic voices of the 20th century.

The excerpt above will be chronicled for generations as one of the defining moments of an age - a speech delivered to West Berliners that could easily be heard by those on the other side of the literal and metaphorical wall.

Reagan’s voice ran hot and true, but did he write those words?

Nope.  Peter Robinson did - all 2,807 of them.

According to neuroscientists words have no meaning until our brain translates them into sound - even when those words are only read silently in the mind.

As a writer, you have the terrific privilege of channeling voices - and while you may not yet shape public policy and world opinion you most certainly can have a profound impact on your place in the world.

Can you voice the true values of your client, and furthermore, can you write the way your voice talent speaks?  Do you know, in advance, who’ll be delivering your client’s voice?  Can you plant their rhythms and drawls and cadences in your head before you write word one?

Can you bring down walls with your voice - even if the only sounds present are the furious clicks of a keyboard?

We’ll speak of this more tomorrow … in the interest of equal time, we’ll turn our ears toward a much more liberal voice.

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Feedback on Leadership

June 21, 2005

Thanks to you and you and you for your feedback on yesterday’s post on leadership v. management.

I received an email from a friend long-since-remembered with the following easy to digest though slightly flawed nugget:

"Leaders praise publicly and coach privately.  Managers, for some unknown reason, tend to do it the other way around."

Hmm.  Okay.

There are most certainly public criticism snot-nosed goober managers.  I used to know and work for one who seemed to get off on loudly braying his excellence over anyone inside his effective radius.  Someone made a sale.  He could have gotten more.  Someone got three new prospects.  He could have gotten four.  Someone made nice chocolate chip cookies.  His have chocolate chips and M & M’s.

Weasel.

And I will say, too, that managers often get caught up in phony-posing-way-too-over-the-top little applause sessions completely devoid of authenticity, and they’re usually held only when somebody makes a sale.

Roy Williams says, "You cannot increase what you do not measure and reward."

Are you merely trying to increase sales?

Is your eye on the wrong ball?

Could you marshal your leadership to measure and reward something else?

And will the money follow?

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Leader? Manager? C? D?

June 20, 2005

Tony threw out a subtle semantic shift in Friday’s senior staff meeting at my day job.

We meet weekly on Fridays for what’s always been referred to as our manager’s meeting.

He didn’t use the word manager last Friday, and it’s been stuck in my craw all weekend.

He made several references to us as leaders - not managers.

In your company, are they one and the same?

If not, what are the qualities of each?

Seriously, I know there are thousands of books on leadership, but I want to know from you - privately or otherwise - if the leaders of your company are your managers.

If not, why not?

Who are the leaders of your company?  What defining characteristics make them the leaders of your company?

And - if they’re not your managers, what purpose do your managers serve?

Email me with your story.   Please?  I will follow up with you if you like.

Thanks.

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World without Oil, Amen …

June 20, 2005

Roy dives deep down the rabbit hole in this week’s Monday Morning Memo.  I’m certain of two things:  follow through on the hyperlinks and you’ll get three times the education and enjoyment, and he’ll get dozens of emails this week chiding him to write more practical stuff.

Sigh.

             
             

             

A World Without Oil
Sometimes I go to funny places in my mind. Do you ever go exploring?

Lately I’ve been imagining a world without oil. No oil for cars, no oil
for 18-wheelers, no oil for jets. Not even any oil for construction
equipment or ambulances. Same world, but smack out of oil. Can you see
it?

The funny thing is that it will happen. When that day comes, we may or
may not have harnessed a renewable source of energy, but run out of oil
we most certainly will. What will the history books say of you and me?

The June 4, 2005 issue of The Economist
tells us the Chinese are learning to drive. Last year they purchased
more than 5 million cars, compared to the 17 million purchased by
Americans. Next year …
continue with this issue…
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A Vote for Gore

June 19, 2005

It’s not because his son’s the same age as Willie, nor is it because it’s each our first Father’s Day, nor is it because his caddy sported the Pabst Blue Ribbon ballcap yesterday.

Well, yep, maybe it is.


I don’t know what’s going to happen at the Open today, but my guess is that smooth-as-top-shelf-vodka Goosen’s going to win going away.

Nevertheless, he ain’t the best story, and as an inarticulate hack, I trophy the best story.

Jason Gore’s been writing it for a lifetime, but the fiercest chapter’s been written this week.

And ESPN.com’s Gene Wojciechowski tells the Joseph Campbell hearty adventure with truth and wit and a Haggard reference.

Somewhere, Dan Jenkins smiles.

Fairways and Greens, Bub.

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