The Wizard Chronicle
How to Attract, Convert, and Delight CustomersBy: Wizard of Ads Partners Editor: Craig Arthur
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Entries from March 9, 2008 - March 15, 2008
Which Path...
"Will you choose the softness of safety or the adrenaline of adventure? The suction of security or the prickle of danger? The golden glow or the gritted teeth?"
– Pennie Williams
Public Speaking
"The hardest part about public speaking is escaping the nitpickers; those annoying people who hover offstage, mosquito-like, to tell you how their opinion differs from your own."
- Roy H. Williams
Where is Your Blind Spot?
Answer: If you knew, it wouldn't be a blind spot.
Accelerate the performance of your business in 2008. Find your blind spot and fix it.
There are 7 common blind spots with 4 common causes.
The most common blind spots have to do with…
1. customer profiling.
What traits do your customers have in common other than the fact they all buy from you? Are you seeing your customers as they really are, or are you seeing them as you wish them to be? False profiling leads to expensive mistakes.
2. reputation.
Consider the people who don’t buy from you. Are they buying elsewhere because they haven’t heard about your company, or is it because they have? I’ve never met a business owner willing to believe their company had a bad reputation.
Advertising, Strategy, Change, Uncovery Australian Consumer Sentiment Falls to Near 15-year Low
All ships rise on an incoming tide just as even a lazy business can increase sales in a buoyant market. However the tide is turning.
To quote Roy H. Williams in his memo Buried Treasure, "2008 is shaping up to be an unhappy year for most product and service categories."
Want some more indicators of the turning tide?
"HIGHER interest rates and rising food and fuel costs have pushed consumer confidence to its lowest level in almost 15 years.
People with mortgages are the least upbeat, but rising food and fuel costs are also making their impact felt.
The latest Westpac-Melbourne Institute consumer sentiment index figures out today show an "extraordinarily large fall" - down 9.1 per cent in March to 88.6 points.
The index, which is based on a survey of 1200 people, is below the 100 level, showing that pessimists outnumber optimists.
A separate survey has found three-quarters of Australians are worried about their ability to pay their bills.
A phone poll commissioned by Veda Advantage showed 75 per cent of respondents had debt repayment anxiety.
Price rises were a concern for 55 per cent of the 1050 people polled, according to the Galaxy Research.
Rising food and petrol costs were a worry for 55 per cent of respondents, with one in two complaining about higher food prices."
The above is an excerpt from an article at www.news.com.au, dated March 12, 2008 03:40pm. Click here to read the full story.
General, Change, The Customer 
Buried Treasure
If your year-to-date numbers are trending ahead of 2007, I salute you.
Today’s Monday Morning Memo is for the remaining 96 percent of American business owners.
Here’s what I want you to do:
1. Write in a vertical list the names of every competitor you face in your chosen product/service category. If you need help remembering them, look in the Yellow Pages. This should take no more than 10 to 12 minutes. Don’t leave anyone out.
2. Write next to each name an estimate of that company’s sales volume in the category in which you compete.
Advertising, Strategy, Change, Uncovery