I'm going to tell you about one where that was not true.

I was selling a diet book and I ran a silk page ad in the Akin Deacon Journal,
which was a rather,
it's a fairly large newspaper, and I wrote a radio spot that I was so in love with
that I did the commercial myself
and it ran all over Akin, Ohio for several days, and the radio spot went like this,
and the radio was short.
Said attention all staff people, did you guard these vans of liver instead of
collecting any old chow time?
Every time you get on an elevator, no matter what button you push, you always go
down.
When you go shopping for food, did your neighbors last behind your back and say
that little piggy went to market again?
That ain't worth that. Learn how to get rid of it. Read the Akin Deacon Journal.
Look for the full page of the big headline that says the world is full of fat
people.
Here's how you can help get rid of them.
And I said look for it.
And then I said buy for it.
I actually did that.
Well, let me tell you, that was one of my more extensive test campaigns.
A full page newspaper ad, dozens of radio spots, I sold three books at $10 to $30.
I lost it all, and I deserved to lose it all because I was stupid.
And I later developed a wave problem myself.
I was younger then.
And when I had my wave problem, and I still have a little bit of it, I don't find
it so damn funny as I did back in those days.
So anyway, but the real way to do it is to say how to promote your business for
less than $1,000.
You know, or say something like, attention all business owners.
If you'd like to know how to promote your business for less than $1,000, a dynamic
news seminar coming up at the Century Plaza Hotel.
You can read all about it today in the Los Angeles Times.
Work for the pages, the headline, and repeat it over and over.
Get them to look for it.
Now that works for a number of reasons because there's a synergistic effect.
First, a lot of people listening to radio don't read the newspaper.
Secondly, if it's in print and it's on the air, it must be true.
You know, it's more likely to be true.
Before I forget, you can also use that on TV.
And a good way to use it on TV is to have the guy hold up the ad and say, hey,
would you like to learn how to leave weight?
Read the L.A. Times today.
Look for this big ad.
It says how to burn off body fat hour by hour.
Reference is good.
I don't recommend generally that you try to sell your services or get much more
than a telephone number out of radio or television.
You can do it, but boy, that's real extra business and it's beyond the scope of
this particular seminar.
But we are going to touch on it.
I'm going to tell you some other points about radio.
Announcers generally consider themselves to be entertaining.
They tolerate commercial.
Do not send a script and let an announcer read it.
Probably the best person to do your commercial being used.
Don't worry about not having a well-modulated voice.
Well-modulated voices are boring.
Stumble a little.
Get a little excited.
You're getting a little nervous.
If I weren't nervous before doing each one of these seminars or before public
speaking or before any of my colleagues in radio work, it would be because anybody
who's not nervous before an audience is drugged up or something.
That's just true.
People in radio and TV now write this down.
Beware production value.
Now, remember this.
If you read those advertising excerpts, what you're going to find out is every
advertising question.
And we're going to remember, because I'm going to beat you to death with it, that
advertising is salesmanship multiplied, of the production values, our little
gadgets, and little dancing, food, and music, and all this stuff.
Now, taking the criteria that we're talking about a salesman, would you send your
salesman out to talk to one of your projects and have a little mushroom in the
background and go, who's going to be talking in a scene like that?
I don't think you'd do that.
So, cut the spot to yourself, talk to someone like you're talking to them on the
phone, you know, and just, and if you want them to respond some way and you're
going to, and when I'm suggesting that mostly you're going to want them to call a
number or look for an ad, allow at least dead minimum 20 seconds for that.
And repeat the numbers beginning, you know, and you might say, you might want
attention all business owners.
If you like to learn how to promote your business without spending a bundle, if so,
you ought to get a pencil ready, because in a few minutes, in a few seconds, I'm
going to give you a number.
I'm going to tell you how to do that.
And that number is such and such that you can keep it over and over.
Okay.
Now, we're going to talk about television.
I have five cable television shows and interest in them right now.
And I'm going to talk to you about that in a moment, because I'm going to send an
opportunity to every one of you that's happenstable to get on TV without spending
any money and helping if you're rich.
But first, let's talk about advertising on TV.
First thing you want to do is remember everything I told you about radio.
If you're doing a television commercial, if at all possible, you be the star of
that commercial.
And when that commercial is being filmed, tell them you don't want any production
value.
You don't want any dancing muffins and fiddle players and all that crap.
Tell them that you do not want any close-up shots.
The reason for that is close-up shots make you look pushy.
Tell them you don't want any long shots, because long shots make you look
dishonest, like you're too far away and you're afraid to come close.
Tell them you want a medium shot.
That's you from the waist-up, because what that will make you look like,
incidentally, a lot of this knowledge comes right out of Joe Carbone's book The
Lady, Man's Lady, Richie's, which is the best $10 value ever offered.
You want it to look like you're standing in their living room talking to them about
something.
Tell them that you do not want any what's called teacher, that means teacher
imposed.
Now, there's an exception to that.
But basically, what that means is you don't want words on the screen while you're
talking, because that splits people's attention.
For you do want that is when you cut to the telephone number, you know, or you want
them to call, then you want that visually and you want that audience.
Now, I'm going to extend to you all of me an opportunity, at least something to
think about.
Cable television is really an exciting medium today.
Paul and I have an interest in five cable television shows, and the way these shows
work is as follows.
Incidentally, we work with a man who I think is the best cable producer in the
country, his name is Hal Morris.
Hal Morris has probably produced all in all 250 to 300 shows.
And the way these shows work, well, I'll tell you how I met Hal.
I met Hal at J.Abraham. We were both there for another reason.
We kept talking about how he likes to meet the guys, whoever wrote you, Dad, this,
that, that.
And I really started smiling because it was me, and they introduced us.
And so we kept in telephone contact.
And Hal told me he wanted to do a cosmetic show, and said I'd get to Board Nine.
And he thinks the Board Nine is in litigation, they're about to be in litigation.
I told him I didn't think they'd be real too open to that.
But when I was in New York, I picked up a client, Vicky Lamotta, cosmetic.
And Vicky Lamotta Cosmetics had a lot of things that lend itself to cable.
And one of the things they had was a product that was visually exciting, a total
visual show.
She has an eye thing, I don't know how it works, but you can put it around one eye,
and in 50 seconds the lines tighten up and disappear.
You can do that right on camera.
So I got in contact with Hal, he got in contact with them, the show was shot.
It's on the air right now, and it has been on since December.
It's called, what is it called?
Can you look younger?
Okay, now the way these shows work,
incidentally the reason that Hal worked with me, I told you so this year and this
year,
and it shows 80% plus didn't fly.
What I do is go over the shows and tell them if they're marketing elements to
there,
and we haven't had a loser yet, not from Wood,
but the way the shows work is they are a 30-minute advertorial format.
You might want to write that if you're not familiar with advertorial.
And the host, which is usually, in my face, Hal Morris,
introduced someone for 30 minutes.
Well, when you cut to the commercial, guess what the commercial is about?
Actually, the whole damn show is a commercial.
But they cut to the 800 number,
and the 800 number is about what it is with the subject of that show.
Now, some of you are selling a product or service
that is applicable to cable television.
And I will tell you how to determine whether that's true or not.
And it's what Sir Gary of Hal has called the three S's.
What you need is a star, a story, and a solution.
The star does not have to be a celebrity.
The star needs to be someone who is expert about the subject of the show.
You know, I mean, it might be a doctor who has written a book on weight loss.
It might be Vicki Lamada on cosmetic.
It might be a financial advisor who owns a brokerage firm.
It might be Vic Furman on mailing list that needs to be an expert in that area.
The story.
It is not enough to say, hi, my name is Joe Jones, and I sell stocks and bonds,
and we're going to talk for 30 minutes.
That ain't going to work.
What's going to work is if you, Joe Jones, have written a book about a fail-safe
method
to select stocks and bonds, and you can be interviewed on that,
or if you are a used car dealer and you have developed a one-price used car lot,
you come in, there's no negotiating.
I don't know why somebody doesn't do that, by the way,
because everybody in the world, I think, hates to negotiate car prices.
You know, I don't buy cars because of that.
But I would just love to go in and know that I could not bargain this guy down.
And, but whatever it is, you need to have a story to tell there.
So laugh, and by far, the most important F is the solution.
By far, you should star that one.
And the reach, and given everything else, if you had a cure for hemorrhoids,
and you didn't have a celebrity, and you didn't have a story,
I would rather do a television show about that,
than if you had Carl Neumann selling nitty machines.
The solution, because people pay money for solutions.
And you might want to write that down.
People pay money for solutions.
To lose weight, to grow hair, to have more money, to drive a better car,
to get a woman, to get a man to, et cetera, et cetera.
For the continuation of this program, please go to the next cassette.