BRIAN ALTER: Morris Jacobs immigrated to America as a boy. He came through Galveston, started out selling newspapers. He worked hard, and earned enough to open a little jewelry store in Texas City, but his store was destroyed in the great hurricane of 1915. He salvaged just enough to pay his debts. Morris always paid his […]

Alert rabbit-holer Bryan Kennedy sent us this link to an amazing story-cartoon. It’s worth the 3-minutes. Trust me. – Indy If you want to prepare yourself for this little story cartoon, read this quote I snagged from the wizard’s random quotes database. He always goes to it on day one of the Magical Worlds workshop: […]

Announcer: Brad Lawrence, owner of Gold Casters Fine Jewelry. Brad: When I opened the store, I had no money. We didn’t have the money for inventory. I brought wax models from school to use to cast into projects for customers. Hence the name Gold Casters. Things were so tight at times, I remember the backside of my […]

I was a ten year-old boy holding a flashlight for my Dad while he worked on an air conditioner for a customer. His name was Duncan Goodrich. He didn’t talk much. But there’s a certain kind of magic that happens when a son holds a flashlight for his father. I held it steady and quiet […]

Tom Heflin was a railroad conductor. His wife had a sister. That sister had two little boys. One day she took those boys on a train to Winslow, Arizona to spend a few days with them. Tom took those boys out into the desert to collect rocks. One of the little boys grew up to […]

SEAN: Standing at the engagement ring counter, I felt like Oliver Twist asking for another bowl of porridge.YOUNG SEAN: “Please sir, may I see that one?”SARAH: Sean Jones, owner of Spence Diamonds.SEAN: The jeweler looked me over, then reluctantly unlocked the showcase and told me the price of the engagement ring.SARAH: What happened next?SEAN: I swallowed hard. No way could I […]

My Dad was a house painter. He taught me to sand and scrape paint old paint until my fingers were aching and raw.  But I wanted to make him proud, so I always worked hard. I’ll never forget the day we opened up our brown bags at lunchtime and he said, “Son. I’m proud of […]

TIM SCHMIDT: I was looking at my brand-new baby boy and thinking about the kinds of things that happen to people when they’re least expecting it. I knew it was my job to keep him safe. And I knew I was unprepared for that job. Trained as an engineer, I went in search of intelligent handgun […]

Five years before Teddy Roosevelt led the Rough Riders, Simon Schiffman stepped off the train to stretch his legs. He saw a little jewelry store for sale, bought it, and the train went on without him. Simon kept the fine quality jewelry but he put the lower-quality stuff on the sidewalk with a sign that said, […]

Beyond Features and Benefits Elmore Leonard began as an ad writer and then became a multiple best-selling novelist. He wrote 45 novels, 18 of which were made into movies, and his final work became the TV series Justified. (See the clips below. – Indy) Here are three of Elmore Leonard’s Ten Rules of Writing: 1. Never […]

“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 […]

“Mr. LeSage, sir, I’ve got a tender new script about a sensitive young subway guard that just stinks of courage and integrity. And I know, sir, that next to scripts that are Tender and Poignant, you love scripts that have Courage and Integrity. This one, sir, as I say, stinks of both. It’s full of […]

Joel Schwartzberg says that when you are giving a speech: 1. Have a point. 2. Get to it.But many business executives and politicians fail to heed those simple rules. Joel knows what he’s talking about. His clients include American Express, Blue Cross Blue Shield, State Farm Insurance, and Comedy Central. Using only 3 simple words, […]

“Cheever tried a few times to engage Donleavy in some conversation, and as Cheever was as gifted in conversation as any man I have ever met, I grew more and more furious at Donleavy’s coldness and unresponsiveness and total discourtesy. I was thinking, frankly, that I should throw the lout in a puddle, if there […]

“Oh, what can you do with a man like that? What can you do? How can you dissuade his eye in a crowd from seeking out the cheek with acne, the infirm hand; how can you teach him to respond to the inestimable greatness of the race, the harsh surface beauty of life; how can […]

“The things that make our lives so tenuous, so unlikely, that we barely come into being, barely meet the people we’re meant to love, barely survive our way in the woods, barely survive catastrophe every day. Your origin is due to two people come together, by accident, whether wisely or not, by the attractions of […]

This is the link to where Galactic Commander Kelley found the goods.

Roving reporter Rotbart’s book, September Twelfth, is now available. Did you realize the 20th anniversary of 9/11 is this week?   Although this book is centered on The Wall Street Journal and reads as an American comeback story, it is ripe with insights for small business owners and managers, hidden in plain sight.   Core lessons […]

“A shampooist in an uptown hair salon warns a matron not to lean too far back on the sink. The salon is being renovated and the sink needs adjustment. The shampooist is new. This time last year, she wasn’t a shampooist. She was a chemist in a country now erased by war. ‘This is an […]

Dr. Bob Nelson has worked with 80% of the Fortune 500 companies and he wants to play a game. It’s called, “Two Business Truths and a Lie.” Which of these three statements is false? Thomas Alva Edison once said: “I never did a day’s work in my life. It was all fun.” Owners and CEOs […]

I’ve been thinking about the words we assign to positive and negative events with differing degrees of probability…   A big positive thing with little chance of happening => A Dream   A small positive thing with decent chance of happening => A Hope   A small negative thing with decent chance of happening => […]

If you would like to make this your gift to the campus of Wizard Academy, contact Zac Smith at zac@wizardacademy.org

Many companies have valuable assets they underutilize or don’t use at all. These assets are customer purchase data and preferences, and if these companies don’t use artificial intelligence to mine those preferences, they are missing out on a hefty vein of marketing gold. Raj Venkatesan is one of the nation’s most respected experts on the use of […]

“When one realizes that his life is worthless he either commits suicide or travels.”– Edward Dahlberg (1900-1977)

“As far as God and Church and Religion and the Buddy Rosses and that sort of thing, I kind of always felt that organized religion was just basically a theological insurance scam where they’re saying, ‘If you spend time with us, guess what? You’re going to live forever. You’re going to go to some other […]

Good to hear from you, Brian! In the words of Robert Pirsig in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance,    “It’s the sides of the mountain which sustain life, not the top.”   And on page 39 of The Adventure of Living, Paul Tournier writes,    “The law of adventure is that it dies as […]

“There is something in every one of you that waits and listens for the sound of the genuine in yourself. It is the only true guide you will ever have. And if you cannot hear it, you will all of your life spend your days on the ends of strings that somebody else pulls.” – […]

Radhika Dutt is a university teacher who explains to her students why the innovation techniques used by Facebook and many of the other “change agents” are misguided and ineffective. She says, “Rapidly launching a new product into the marketplace and then tweaking it until you get it right is like driving a fast car without […]

These red words are what you click if you want to take a trip to the Monday Morning Memo for April 9, 2018.

Michele Miller-Nelson is a Wizard of Ads Partner. Want to know what Michele can do for you?

Joe and Indigo and the engagement party of Joe and Indigo.The scene is the Fang and Feather whiskey tasting room at the Crowded Barrel Distillery on the campus of Wizard Academy.

Edie and Vance at the engagement party of Joe and Indigo

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 […]