I was looking toward Tuscan Hall on a rainy day many years ago when Joe Davis stopped and waited, so that he wouldn’t be in the picture.

Students of Wizard Academy have heard how 1 man with 5 helpers built most of our campus. This is a photo of that man with his original cast of helpers on the day we opened Chapel Dulcinea 16 years ago. Daniel Denny married Pattie, the older sister of Princess Pennie, when Pennie was about 10 […]

Roving reporter Rotbart conducted an informal poll of business owners and friends. He asked each of them, “What is the one thing you desire more of?” About 40% answered “money.” Another 40% said they wish they had more energy. Dr. Amy Novotny has helped a large number of people address a wide variety of restrictive […]

Compensation is way more than a great pay plan. Motivation doesn’t always appear on a P&L. Compliance creates complacence. Culture is motivation, and motivation is compensation.   With a strong culture comes a strong buying experience. A strong buying experience allows you to tell a powerfully authentic story.   With a strong story and experience, […]

1. The very best digital marketers are famous for the money they don’t spend. But the majority of digital marketers will spend every penny of any budget they are given and then suggest that you cut back on your mass media to fund ever-increasing amounts of online ads. Here’s the problem: although most of the […]

Hi Roy,   I agree that you need to separate branded keyword results versus non-branded. A seasoned digital marketer should not expect non-branded keywords to outperform branded ones.   When people are looking for a solution to a problem, they may search for a brand name, the problem, or the product/service.   If they search […]

Read the full report on What Happens When Brands Stop Advertising Meet the mighty Craig Arthur from Australia, celebrating 20 years as a Wizard of Ads Partner!

1: If you are selling your company for a multiple of your top line sales, then it’s okay to lose money in the short term. The nitwit buyer is going to reward you for losing that money. But if you are selling your company for a multiple of earnings, then you are setting yourself up […]

Jeff Seckendorf draws a clear distinction between experts, and experts who can teach. Whether it’s scuba diving, aerial acrobatics, brain surgery, or auto repair, Jeff Seckendorf can not only teach the subject, but he can train others to teach it as well. His secret is allowing others to be the subject-matter experts, while he zeros in on the process […]

“Sales activation is any kind of marketing activity which is intended to evoke a fairly immediate response from the consumer. For long term growth, you need something different, and that’s brand-building. Brand-building is any kind of marketing communications that are intended to produce long term changes in human behavior by creating long term memories.” “Our […]

Seen in the Wild Hey Andrew,I wanted to share with you a compliment you received in an affinity group I’m in. I want you to know how proud I am to be represented along side you, Andrew. You are a true testament to the Wizard of Ads and the very best that we stand for. If you ever […]

We asked William Hackett-Jones, Wizard Academy’s Official Ambassador to Russia, what the guys are saying at the beginning of the video. He answered, A lot of nothing, really.“Come on”“Hurry up”Then the bloke in the middle says “This is judgement day.” And that’s about it.

Let’s be honest, you can’t always answer the phone and that is especially true if you are a small owner-operated business.  I work with a client just like this in Canada.  Stadium Property Stars.  The owner is awesome, works very hard and loves his customers.  He makes every effort to answer every single call without […]

Club Tattoo currently has six locations, including a booming tattoo studio at the Planet Hollywood Resort & Casino in Las Vegas. Their artists have inked or pierced hundreds of celebrities, including musicians Blake Shelton and Miley Cyrus, actors Ewan McGregor and Chrissy Metz, and athletes Héctor Sanchez, Amar’e Stoudemire, and Frank Trigg. Sean Dowdell, The Tattooed […]

What Did Covid Do to Friends? Below is the second paragraph of a very interesting story published by The Survey Center on American Life

The Wizard of Ads wrote “Banter as a Tool for Selling” for Radio Ink magazine. He then had the Two Dudes record it. Click here to read and Listen.

 

Read the story, watch the video.

Claude Jeter joins Paul Simon in “Take Me to the Mardi Gras”

Loves Me Like a Rock  

Paul Simon later met Claude Jeter face-to-face and gave him a check for inspiring Bridge Over Troubled Water. Three years later he hired Jeter to sing the falsetto background vocal on “Take Me to the Mardi Gras,” a song on his 1973 album.

In 1812, Charles Redheffer devised a machine he claimed could keep moving forever without ever being touched or otherwise aided. His machine had a gravity-driven pendulum with a large horizontal gear on the bottom. A smaller gear interlocked with the larger one. Both the large gear and the shaft were able to rotate separately. Placed […]

“On September 11, 1660, Samuel Pepys tried a new hot beverage for the first time, recording in his diary: ‘And afterwards I did send for a cup of tee (a China drink), of which I never had drank before.’ Whether he liked it or not Pepys didn’t say, which is a shame, as it is […]

Cezanne’s Card Players sold for $274 million in 2011, making it the most expensive painting ever sold, a record that held until the sale of Salvator Mundi, which was supposedly painted by Leonardo da Vinci. Cezanne’s Bouilloire et Fruits sold for $52 million at Christie’s in 2019.  Cezanne’s Nature Morte de Peches et Poires brought $28.2 million at Christie’s in […]

Picasso referred to Cézanne as “the father of us all” and claimed him as “my one and only master!” Other painters such as Edgar Degas, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Paul Gauguin, Kasimir Malevich, Georges Rouault, Paul Klee, and Henri Matisse acknowledged Cézanne’s genius. – WIKIPEDIA

The idea that children are passive repositories to be shaped by their parents has been massively overstated. A child’s peer group is a far greater determinant of its development and achievements than parental aspiration.

See and hear it for yourself at https://goodmeat.co

Wizard of Ads partner Paul Boomer offers some sage advice about what to do when you get stuck on a goal. What triggered Paul’s flash of brilliance was the wizard’s Monday Morning Memo and my Rabbit Hole for July 12, 2021. – Indy Beagle

Indy, we’ve come to that time where I call upon you for a favor, knowing full well that it means I’ll probably have to help you bury a body someday, no questions asked. I’m willing to make that bargain. Today is the day my book comes out: Los Angeles is Hideous: Poems About An Ugly […]

<a href=”https://bradwhittington.bandcamp.com/album/wunderfool-kids-stuff”>Wunderfool Kid's Stuff by Brad Whittington</a>

“Is that ham processed?If it’s processed, I don’t want it.” “Ma’am, that is an eleven pound whole slab of deli ham. It has no bones, fat, or connective tissue.  It is an amalgamation of the meat of several pigs, emulsified, liquified, strained, and ultimately inexorably joined in an unholy meat obelisk. God had no hand […]

Meet Michele Miller-Nelson and increase your sales to female customers.

Read about Gunner, Bootsie’s Grandpa, at War History Online

STEP ONE: Distribute these 2 sheets. STEP TWO: Deliver the speech below: Ted Leonsis was on a little commuter airplane that lost the ability to use its wing flaps and landing gear. Faced with death, Ted wrote a bucket list of 101 things that he promised himself he would do if he lived. Start to […]

Mandy Hale isn’t a business writer, but she may have written the best piece of business advice, ever. “To make a difference in someone’s life, you don’t have to be brilliant, rich, beautiful, or perfect. You just have to care.” Your employees need to know you care. Something that makes me happy every time I […]

Meet Jay Mistry!

A Unique Application of Personas George Packer believes the people of the United States see Four Different Americas. Each of these Americas is a “persona” crafted to fit personal values and beliefs. According to George…   “Free America” believes the purpose of government is to secure individual rights and little else. Consumer capitalism and the elevation […]

“Nations, like individuals, tell stories in order to understand what they are, where they come from, and what they want to be. National narratives, like personal ones, are prone to sentimentality, grievance, pride, shame, self-blindness. There is never just one – they compete and constantly change. The most durable narratives are not the ones that […]

You and I decide to wander around Cambridge in 1609, the year that George Herbert entered Trinity College and came to the attention of King James. Indy Beagle, upon hearing of our journey, decides to go with us. We wander first into The Eagle and the Child, a pub in Cambridge that William Shakespeare was known […]