Wizard of Ads Clay Campbell

Before you hire the next person ask this question.

Small business owners always tell me, “It’s difficult, and seems almost impossible to find people who want to work.” Finding someone who will show up on time, have a good attitude, and actually work, is a problem all over the USA and with all kinds of businesses. Many small business owners have tried and failed several times and have become discouraged and reluctant to hire more help even when they really need to, in order to grow their business.

I have a habit of asking a question or two of very successful business owners and heads of big companies. The answers to these questions have often helped me avoid serious problems, help my clients, and do extremely well with my own business.

There are perhaps many keys to success finding good people. One key that has never failed me, and the business owners who use it say it always works for them. Here it is:
“What did you do to earn income when you were a child?”
If they can’t think of anything that is a warning sign. If the first job they’ve had was Pizza Hut after graduating college, that’s another warning sign.

If they did baby sitting, mowed yards, had a paper route, was lifeguard, or similar work, there’s a real good chance this person would work out very well. When I was twelve I begged Mom and Dad for saddle for my horse. We were very poor, so my Dad said, “Go out and earn the money, and you can buy with it whatever you want.” That summer I picked up soda pop bottles and sold them. I picked blackberries, picked up walnuts, scrap iron and earned the money to buy a new saddle for my horse. The next year I traded it and a pig for a 1939 Martin guitar. My Dad and Mom taught me there was no free lunch.
He said they had no resources to help me. “You work you get money. You don’t work you don’t get money.” Wouldn’t be great if everyone you hired had that kind of training?

It’s very difficult to be right every time you hire someone. Five small business owners this year have confided in me that they had employees they trusted that were stealing money. A guy I knew pretty well (I thought) worked as a manager at a Hardee’s just up the road. He had a wonderful family, went to church here in this county and by all indications was the typical all around nice guy. He had a very likeable personality, was an Eagle Scout and volunteered as a Scout Leader.
I was shocked when I went in to Hardee’s one morning and found he had been fired. I talked to the new manager and he candidly told me that this very nice guy had been stealing an average of $4000 a month for the last two years.
You can never be 100% right, but you increase your chances of success in hiring if in the interview process you add this question to your list: “What did you do to earn income when you were a child?” It will certainly tell you a lot about that person.

It's what you say multiplied by how many times you say it.

I do independent contract work for a group of nine radio stations. We called on a business that had said they wanted to run some advertising with us to increase their business. We gave them info on all the stations as requested. What followed was a big debate on the demographics: who listed to what station, how much money those people made, how old they were, what kind of music “their customer” liked, The sales team and the management were all in the office, each one opining strongly about which station they should buy advertising on.

My comment was that they should buy on the one they could afford (according to their budget) that could reach the listener with a frequency of three. (Running 18-21 ads per week on most any radio will insure the listener will hear the ad three times.)

They didn’t acknowledge that statement and the debate continued on. Their main concern was targeting the right people to sell their product to. I said, “What we really should be discussing here is what to say in your ads.” They couldn’t agree on the copy either. Some thought they should say this, some thought they should say that. But the conversation kept going back to which station they should be on. I finally told them something Roy H. Williams often says, “I’ve never seen a business go broke because of reaching the wrong people. But I seen a lot of them go broke from saying the wrong thing in their ads.”

Salience multiplied by frequency is the best way to get more bang for your marketing buck. In order for a small business to survive you must spend your ad budget wisely. Most of the time that ad budget is very small so you must get results too. You must reach the listener with something that is important to the listener - something that either solves a problem, or satisfies a need (salience). Then the consumer must hear it over and over (frequency). In most markets, running between 18 and 21 ads during a period of 7 nights’ sleep gives you a frequency of three. If you have a salient message, and the consumer hears it three times within a period of seven nights’ sleep, they will remember it. So run it on a station that, with your ad budget, you can afford to buy 18 to 21 ads every week

From Roy H. Williams’ 12 common mistakes in advertising:
Mistake # 9. Over targeting
Quit trying to reach just your target audience. It's a myth that you only need to get your message to the decision-makers. Truth is, decisions are seldom made in a vacuum. Don't neglect the influencers!

A cliché is a clever expression that has lost its freshness from overuse.

Webster's defines cliché as "a trite expression or idea." Trite, by the way, means "devoid of freshness or appeal due to overuse." “A poem that is ‘devoid of freshness’ cannot be a good thing”. The same can be said for an ad.

An advertising cliché is a word or phase that is used over and over by advertisers. Many times you’ll see or hear the same clichés being used by several different advertisers in the same towns on the same stations and newspapers. These clichés have no redeeming value in ad copy.Another definition of a cliché is a clever expression that has lost its freshness from overuse. Clichés are rampant in advertising today. An advertising cliché is boring, stale, and ineffective in persuading people to do business with the company running the ad.
Consider this ad.

The ad below can be heard with a different business name 100’s of times a week in just about any town in the US. The advertising clichés are in italics.

The Home Decoration Store is having the biggest sale of the year! We’re slashing prices. You will not believe the savings!Winter is just around the corner …so hurry on down to The Home Decoration Store. We are making room for new spring merchandise. AND this weekend is our huge inventory reduction sale. Lazy Boy chairs up to 25% off
Lane Rockers up to 50% off
Dinette sets up to 65% off
Last and certainly not least we have…
All lamps, end tables, and accessories priced up 75% off.Values like these won’t last long… so better hurry. Lowest prices guaranteedDrive a little, save a lot on Beautiful Home Decorations.
Now is the time to take advantage of the huge selection and savings. This weekend is your last chance this year to save, save, save! for all your home decoration needs visit our newly remodeled showroom.You’ll just love the savings at The Home Decoration Store located at Main Street and 32nd Ave… St Charles

Just about every kind of business has used a few clichés because many small business owners want their ad to sound like an ad. I’ve had many business insist that I put clichés in an ad after my suggestion that those words are ineffective in getting past Broca’s area of the brain. Broca’s area is the “Cow Pie Detector as my friend Michele Miller calls it.
But I believe the public is smarter than that. I believe you’ll get more bang for your marketing buck if you look for clichés in your ads and then delete them.