Dear Reader,

My son wears a shirt that says, “Do you even game, bruh?”—decorated with a controller and little gaming characters.

My daughter wears her dance team jacket everywhere. It’s black and gold and glitters in the light.

My son’s shirt and my daughter’s jacket are clear signals to the world. They say, “This is who I am. This is how I see myself—and I want you to see it too.”

Because they wear these signals, they put energy into becoming those versions of themselves. And it’s working. Everett is known as “King Everett” in his gaming community, and Willa was recognized as Dazzler of the Year by her dance team.

This is the Walter Mitty Effect.

Walter Mitty is a fictional character from the short story The Secret Life of Walter Mitty. He was a meek man — but in his imagination, he did big and wild things. You may recall the movie of the same name starring Ben Stiller.

Here are a few of the big and wild things Walter imagines in the film:

·   Leaping into a burning building to save a dog

·   Standing up to his arrogant boss in dramatic fashion

·   Daydreaming about romance

·   Becoming a world-traveling adventurer

·   Always being the hero — strong, daring, admired

Walter wasn’t any of these things… until he was.

He told himself a story — again and again — until one day, the story became reality.

Walter did do big and wild things:

·   He jumps from a helicopter into icy, shark-infested waters in Greenland

·   Calls out his boss in real life and confidently walks away from his job at Life magazine

·   Has a real romance

·   Treks through Greenland, Iceland, and the Himalayas

·   Becomes the strong, confident man he once only imagined

Walter Mitty dreamed of a version of himself until, one day, he bought into the idea—and made it real.

That’s the Walter Mitty Effect.

That’s the art of making people buy who they want to be.

That’s good marketing.

Watch / listen above or read below.

Todd Liles: Welcome, everyone, to another episode of Todd Liles and the Wizard of Ads. And today we’re going to talk about aspirational advertising. And I call this episode Selling to Walter Mitty. Now, James Thurber wrote the book the Secret Life of Walter Mitty in 1938. Roy, you are an avid reader. I’ve not asked you, but have you read that book?

Roy Williams: Of course.

Todd Liles: Yeah.

Roy Williams: So one short story.

Todd Liles: Tell the audience what it’s about.

Roy Williams: Okay. So there’s a guy, and he is the ultimate nerd. He’s a little invisible man. He’s timid, he’s meek. He’s just invisible. And throughout the day, he has such a rich imagination that in any environment, he is a World War I flying ace. And he’s fighting all these things. And then the next thing…

I’ve spent 30, 40 years since I read it, but I do remember he goes five or six incarnations, so something will happen in his external environment and will trigger. Now he’s this other character doing these amazing, unbelievable, heroic things. You know, he’s literally the exact opposite of who he is in real life.

But the richness of his imagination and his ability to tell himself stories about the person he believes himself to be on the inside.

Todd Liles: That’s right.

Roy Williams: Okay. And so the Secret Life of Walter Mitty. And you realize at the end of it, just a little guy keeping himself entertained and causing himself to see himself in his mind the way that he wants to be seen by everyone in the world.

Todd Liles: Absolutely. And that is such a fascinating concept to me that I thought that we would use that as a tie in to aspirational marketing, because we know that people, they’re not just buying products, they’re essentially buying things that are boosting or reinforcing this identity that they have, or that they want for themselves.

And I know that the best brands do this. And I certainly know that with your world famous Rolex ad, you’ve made everyone imagine themselves climbing Mount Everest, doing something amazing, doing something aspirational. And it makes people go, “Yes, I want that too.” So I’m effectively calling this episode the Walter Mitty Effect. And we’re going to break that down.

So the first thing I want to move into is this concept of aspirational buying. Customers buy, essentially buying who they want to become. So why do you think that people make purchases that already align with their current identity, and also the identity that they want to have in the future?

Roy Williams: Okay. Remember, the identity they want to have in the future is how they already see themselves in their mind. It’s just that other people don’t see them that way, but down inside, they know they are that person, but nobody else knows it yet. How can I cause them to see me the way that I see me?

Okay, and so most people are not just a straight up con man. They’re not just straight up liars and grifters and, you know, putting on an act to fool people. Most people first believe something about themselves, or know something about themselves, that other people don’t know. And they’re just looking for a way, how can I get it across to these people? Who I really am is different than who they think I am.

And so the real aspiration is to be seen by others the way that you see yourself. Okay, now again, speaking to a felt need is easy. The ad I mentioned in the last episode, that was a direct response ad. I’ll remember the key points, even though I don’t have it in front of me. I made up a name of a toothpaste called Twinkle White.

Now, Twinkle White toothpaste with polychromaticide will make your teeth whiter, your breath fresher, and everyone will be attracted to you. 93% of all billionaires and 97% of all supermodels use Twinkle White with polychromaticide, which means that polychromaticide is essential to wealth and beauty. Twinkle White with polychromaticide cannot be purchased in stores, which means you’ll save 65% when you order it now, from the Twinkle White laboratories at twinklewhite.com. And so what happens is…

Todd Liles: That’s just made up.

Roy Williams: Yeah, I just made it up.

Todd Liles: Okay.

Roy Williams: Now, there’s no such thing as polychromaticide.

Todd Liles: I’m sitting here thinking, what is polychromaticide?

Roy Williams: It sounds like there should be a thing called polychromaticide, right?

Todd Liles: Yes.

Roy Williams: Now you know what happens. Who am I speaking to when I say 93% of all billionaires and 97% of all supermodels use Twinkle White with polychromaticide? And then everybody’s going, “I don’t care how much the toothpaste costs. I can afford toothpaste. And you know what? If I’m using the toothpaste of the billionaires, I’m using the toothpaste of the supermodels. And they all do it. They must have a reason. And I’ve never heard of this. This must be hard to get. And I’m sure glad I heard about it.”

And so the very first time you hear the ad, you go to twinklewhite.com now, just so you’ll know, I did buy twinklewhite.com.

Todd Liles: Nice.

Roy Williams: That’s where I wrote that ad. You know why? It was available. I’m going, it’s kind of a cool name.

Todd Liles: It’s a very cool name. So you just made a poly, whatever.

Roy Williams: Polychromaticide.

Todd Liles: Polychromaticide. You just made it up on the spot. But, you know, if we give something a name, we can certainly go out there and probably define what it is. Maybe it’s a, it’s not just, you know, one fluoride, it’s two fluorides. But I find that sort of interesting, and also sort of funny.

But the tying back into something we want to be, ads have been doing this forever. I’m immediately thinking of the Marlboro Red. And I know that we don’t want to be promoting people smoking cigarettes. That’s a terrible thing. But when I grew up in the ’80s, if you wanted to be a tough guy, a manly man, if you wanted to be a cowboy that every man wanted to be like, and every woman secretly fantasized about. Yeah, you smoked Marlboro, right?

And that sort of… To me, it’s interesting how we can end up building these personas. Now, I don’t want to give it away, but it’s funny that you took it there, because I’m going to show you an ad when we get towards the end that ties this in. So let me drop down to real brands. Let’s talk about real brands.

In your opinion, what brand or brands do the absolute best job? Maybe they’ve even built empires on this concept of aspirational identities.

Roy Williams: Oh, Louis Vuitton for sure.

Todd Liles: No, Yeah.

Roy Williams: I mean, it’s like all of the LVMH brands. Rolex, of course. Anything that communicates taste, style and purchasing power. Okay. And so there are certain items that are just accepted as being extraordinarily tasteful and highly desirable simply by virtue of their extremely high cost. And when you pay an enormous amount of money for something that provides a function that you can achieve for 1/500th, 1/1000th as much money, and so you’re gonna pay 500 times, you’re gonna pay 1,000 times more money to get the same function.

But why would you do that? So you can have the one that cost 1,000 times more than anyone else has. We’re talking about a purse or a watch. A Rolex might tell you what time it is, but so does your cell phone, and so does the cheapest little electronic watch you can buy at Target. And it’s like, bottom line, whenever we pay extraordinary amounts of money for brands that simply help us announce to the world who we are and reinforce our self identity. When you’re wearing those shoes, when you’re carrying that purse, when you have that watch, you feel differently about yourself.

You feel more confident. You feel all these things you like to feel. And so remember, identity reinforcement is where a lot of purchases are born. And it’s like, how do I see myself and how can I remind myself of that, of who I am and how can I tell other people who I am? And we do it with the things we purchase and the cars we drive, the neighborhoods we live in, the clothes we wear, a thousand things. And nobody likes to hear this because it makes us sound like we’re very needy and broken creatures, because we are.

Okay, I’m sorry. We really are. And when you’ve been doing marketing successfully for enough years, you realize everybody’s broken a little. And the ones that are most broken of all are the ones who believe they’re not.

Todd Liles: Yeah, you know, I was reading through… By the way, the source for all of the material comes from your years of Writing the wizard of Ads, The Secret Formula of the Wizard of Ads, the Monday Morning Memos. And I was reading through. Shame on Me, I’m drawing a blank here. I think it Was wizard of Ads where you were talking about. You’ve been studying value for many, many years. You’ve come to the answer. Value, essentially, is what someone is willing to pay for something. It’s perceived.

Roy Williams: Oh, yeah, okay. It’s different than that, it’s more specific.

Todd Liles: Let’s hear it.

Roy Williams: Value is the difference between the anticipated price.

Todd Liles: Anticipated price.

Roy Williams: And the price on the tag. 

Todd Liles: Yes. Thank you.

Roy Williams: And so whenever you tell a story about something, or whenever a thing has a reputation, or whenever you understand a thing and you assume a price higher than the price that’s on the tag. Oh, that’s a good value. If you assume a price lower than the price on the tag, that’s a bad value. It all has to do with the perceived anticipated price.

Todd Liles: There you go.

Roy Williams: And so the anticipated price determines how they feel about the item because the comparison between anticipated price and the price that’s actually on the tag, that’s whether it’s a good value or a bad value. And the gap determines how good of a value or how bad of a value.

Todd Liles: Yes. Thank you for that. I really appreciate that distinction. It reminds me of this conversation I had with this young man yesterday where I was wanting him to come in and grab some footage. I’m going to go sling some swords. For those of you that don’t know, I like to sword fight. I’m actually going to go out to my old college. I’m going to sling some swords. I’m going to do fighting over two days.

I want the guy to grab some footage and then get a little testimony for myself and then for my sword teacher that’s there, Mark Gwynn, and he’s going over all the information with me. And he gets to the end, he’s telling me all these wonderful things he’s going to do. I’m going to bring my lighting kit. I’m going to bring multiple cameras. I’m going to stage this up. I’m going to make sure I have a place for you and Mark to have a conversation. It’s going to be beautiful. I’m gonna grab B-roll and I go, wow, this is amazing. This is fantastic.

And he says, “Do you have a budget in mind? ” And I’m going to tell you, I’m thinking to myself, this guy’s going to be shooting for two days. He’s coming in from Atlanta. This is going to be at Ruston, Louisiana. So he’s coming from Atlanta. Roy, I’m thinking this is probably going to be like five at minimum, maybe 10 grand. I don’t know what these things cost. And he had asked me, “Did you have a budget in mind? ”

And I said, “I really don’t have a budget in mind because I’ve not had to do this. Here’s my thought, Jake. It’s going to be what it’s going to be, and unless it’s something absolutely crazy, I’m going to do it.” Jake also happens to be Mark’s son. I said, “I’m gonna do it because, you know, you’re like family, so whatever it is, okay? ” He goes, “Well, I was gonna give you the family and friends rate.”

I said, “No, don’t do that. Give me the full price. You deserve to make money.” He said, “600 bucks.” I said, “Well, hang on a second, Jake. 600 bucks? ” He goes, yeah, 600 bucks. I said, “Why so little? ” He says, “Well, that’s what I charge for a full day rate in Atlanta. It’s my full price.” I said, “Yeah, but you’re coming to Reston.” He goes, “Well, I’m already gonna be there. I wanted to come to the event anyway.”

I said, “All right.” And he goes, “And I wanted to give you a family friends discount, but you told me to charge what I charge.” I said, “Listen, I want you to love this. So how about I… I’m gonna give you 1,000 bucks. You say your day rate’s 600. You say you are gonna be there living, you know, hanging out with… I wanna give you 1,000 bucks because I want your absolute best work.” Oh, and he’s wigging out, but in my brain, I’m going, this is gonna be really expensive. And then…

Roy Williams: No, I was with you. I was thinking, yeah, you’re not gonna get it for five. It’s gonna be closer to 10. Yeah.

Todd Liles: And it probably could have got it, but, you know, maybe I’ll have a conversation with him, but the effect is still the same. I was ready to have paid more money, and I felt so bad about it being 600 that I’m giving him 1,000. I’ll probably give him a nice tip when I’m done, because I was like… But that’s because I got a huge savings in my…

Roy Williams: Editing or just shooting.

Todd Liles: So here’s the deal. He is shooting, and when I said, “Hey, I’m going to give you 1,000, ” he goes, “Oh, that’s fantastic. Look, I’m going to go ahead and edit and get all your clips together.” And I connected him with Adam, one of our wizard partners. And I’m going, “Well, how much more do I need? ” He’s like, no, no, no, no. The 1,000 is my rate for all that. So of course I’m going to put some extra skin in his pocket. I want to take care of the kid. And I almost, Roy, feel kind of bad, even though I’m paying him his full rate that he would have charged anyone. But, you know, it’s just that, that whole perception, I thought it was going to be.

Roy Williams: Perception of value compared to the price on the tag. And so remember, it’s all about controlling the perception of value. And so what marketing does is raise the anticipated price. And if it doesn’t raise the anticipated price to be significantly higher than what you’re charging, then either your prices are genuinely not competitive, or you’re just not a good ad writer.

Todd Liles: Let’s talk about that. Because we have a big audience of people that are inside the trades. We’ve got people that are outside the trades that listen to this as well. If they’ve been involved with you or I, this all makes sense to them. If they found us somehow and they’re listening to this for the first time, they’re thinking to themselves, yeah, yeah, yeah, Roy, I get it. Louis Vuitton. That’s Louis Vuitton. Yeah, yeah, Rolex. I get it. That’s Rolex.

But they’re probably not thinking to themselves, how can I advertise in a way that actually sets this tone that like, this is premium. And when I call these people, I’m going to call these people and I’m calling them with anticipation that it’s probably going to be a pretty premium place. They may not even be able to imagine themselves attracting a client that is even willing to pay premium.

So this is so disconnected to some of our listeners. They’re struggling with it, but it is true that it’s available to them. So if I’m the guy in my truck going, “I wish I could charge more. I wish I could not only charge what I was worth, but have people think I was worth more than I’m worth.” What’s step one?

Roy Williams: Okay, let’s talk about what the problem is that has to be solved. Because until we understand the problem that has to be solved, the steps don’t make any sense. Number one, every person who wrestles with not feeling like they can raise their prices, it’s because they think everybody has the same bank account they have.

Todd Liles: Oh, there you go.

Roy Williams: It’s because they think everybody else is needing cash the way they need cash. And if they wouldn’t hire their company at the price they’re going to ask you to pay, they can’t look you in the face and ask it. And so whenever you think everybody is as poor as you are, or is as struggling as much as you’re struggling, that’s the limiting factor.

And so it is really, really, really, really, really hard to ask people to spend money for something that in a million years you would not spend that much money to do the thing that you’re offering to do for them. Does that make sense?

Todd Liles: 100%.

Roy Williams: And so what happens is it’s just your fundamental sense of honesty and integrity that keeps you from telling people that this thing that you know how to do in your sleep with one hand is worth hundreds of dollars. And it’s like, nah. I mean, any idiot can do this for free. It’s just not that hard.

It’s like, no, there’s lots and lots and lots and lots of people who have way more money than time. And even if they could learn to do it, they don’t want to. Do you know how old I was before I actually could wrap my head around the idea that people would drive their car to a place to have the oil changed? I remember this was long enough ago that you could buy five quarts of oil for less than five bucks, and a filter was like two bucks. So for $7, you can change your own oil. And it’s like, man, I got the wrench. I can scoot under that car, spin that filter off, drain that oil, and I could button the thing up and be done in like eight minutes.

Todd Liles: Exactly.

Roy Williams: And so for seven bucks in eight minutes, I can do this. And back in those days, when you went to one of these places that changes oil, it’s at least 30 bucks. And I’m going, you’re out of your mind. I had so little respect for any man who would pay $30 to have their oil changed, because that was serious money to me. I was making $3.25 an hour, $3.25 an hour. So it’s two hours work for me to change my oil. And I’m going, “Really? I’m supposed to work for like a 10 hour day to pay for an oil change? You’re out of your mind.”

And so I couldn’t ask people to spend money that I couldn’t afford to spend. And so the easy way to get around it is when you start having more money than what you have time. It’s easy to ask people to pay an amount of money so that they don’t have to do something that you can do for them, because you’re paying people to do things for you that you don’t want to do. You could, you just don’t want to. And so I finally, by some miracle, started making enough money that I didn’t have to wrestle with that.

But I’m telling you, that’s the root of the problem. And so what’s the first step to be able to perceive when you’re talking to someone that just wants the problem solved? Money they have plenty of, time they have none of, and they don’t want to interview four different people to get the problem solved. They’re going to pay the first person that they have some confidence in that they kind of like. And they’re just going to pay what that person asked them to pay. And that’s the reality of it.

And so when you’re in a transactional lifestyle and you’re in a transactional mentality, you think everybody out there is transactional. I want the best for the cheapest. It’s like a lot of people go, “You know what? I just want the problem solved. Here’s how much I will pay you right now to solve this problem.” And it’s kind of like it might be, as a matter of fact, I was… Some guys knocked on my door and asked if they could trim some trees. And we have lots of trees, lots and lots of trees. This is one oak tree. And for whatever reason, it was growing little suckers off the trunk and on some of the branches, you know.

And I said, “Okay, I need all those trimmed off.” Now, I could do it. I didn’t even have the shears and the saws. I could do it in about probably two hours. I didn’t want to. And so these guys are knocking on the door and and they need trees trimmed. I said, “Look, I want to have that one oak tree trimmed right there. I want to trim all those suckers off.” And I said, “Come up with a price.”

I was willing to pay him 1,000 bucks. I was happy to pay 1, OOO bucks. Do that for me, because I’m tired of looking at it, and I don’t want to do it. I don’t have time to do it. I just don’t. Didn’t want to get up on a ladder. Didn’t want to be sawing. Didn’t want to be doing… But I can. I’ve done things like that my whole life. So the guy comes back and he says, “Well, you know, I also noticed you need this done and this done, this done, this done, this done, ” some other things. And I’m going, “I didn’t need any of that done.” And he asked for like, 2,500 bucks but he wanted to make this huge job of it.

I said, “No, no.” You know why I didn’t keep talking to him?

Todd Liles: Tell me.

Roy Williams: Because I told him what I wanted.

Todd Liles: He didn’t listen.

Roy Williams: Instead of just giving me a price, you know, what if he had said, “Man, we’ll do that for $200.” I’d have said “Nope, it’s worth 1,000 to me.” And I want you to… I like for people to feel glad that we’re doing business. And I want this person to know this guy is really willing to pay us. He’s a good guy. He is very generous. And you attract good people when you do that, and you get a much better relationship when you do that.

And you’ve seen me do it. In every restaurant we’ve ever gone into, they almost clap and cheer when I walk in because I don’t have to wait tables. And I want to make sure that the waiters and waitresses know that I care. And so when people have more money than time, they’re always willing to pay the price that they think would be fair. And this guy wanted to try to talk me into something I didn’t want to do.

And what’s he wasting? He’s wasting my time, and he’s trying to convince me to do something. And I told him what I wanted, and he didn’t listen. And so now I’m going. I’m having to negotiate with this guy who knocked on my door and interrupted my day. So I just made him leave.

Todd Liles: I’ll tell you what’s interesting, because I’ve heard you say something similar to that, but not in the tree side of things. We’ve known each other for a couple of years now. One of the things that I’ve learned about you as a buyer is that when you want something, you want something, you’ve already decided.

Roy Williams: I think that’s true of most people, though, Todd.

Todd Liles: I think it is, too. And I think maybe the other part that’s also true about you is that you have a stronger personality, like I do. I’m not unafraid to tell someone, “That’s not what I asked you to do.” Some people are. This guy might have been trying to do what he thought was a decent sales technique, but he missed the most critical rule, in my opinion, which is give people what they want.

And then after you have earned a certain level of trust, then you can talk to them about what they need. Because getting to a need is sometimes a little bit more difficult, because it requires a certain level of convincing that needs a relationship, or needs trust, or it needs evidence of, look, I know what I’m talking about. I want to turn for just a moment, and I want to share with you a technique that I use when I’m teaching sales and technicians, when I’m teaching sales technicians.

Roy Williams: Good. Please do.

Todd Liles: Because this always happens, technicians seem to struggle with it the most, right down to the point to where I’ll ask them, “Hey, guys, do you believe in maintenance? ” We don’t like maintenance agreements, club memberships. But basically, do you believe in maintaining your air conditioning system? They all 100% raise their hand. There’s no one that doesn’t believe they should clean their coils, change their filters and whatnot.

And then I’ll follow it up with the other question, which is, “How many of you have the agreement that your company offers? ” Almost none of them do. I ask why? And the answer is, “I can do it myself.” 

Roy Williams: Sure.

Todd Liles: Of course you can, I get that, you can totally do it yourself. And then I’ll follow it up. There might be an occasional person that raises their hand. If so, I’ll ask them, why do they do it? But for everyone that didn’t raise their hand, I’ll follow it up and say, “How many of you are converting above 50%? ” No hands go up. And then if some hands are up, “Are you above 60? ” But no hands go up at 50% when they’re not doing maintenance with their own company, they’re doing it themselves. 40, 30? Finally, hands might start popping up at about 10%. I’ll do the same thing when I ask people that are selling air conditioning systems, how many of you have the indoor air quality systems that you recommend?

Plumbing. How many of you have the tankless water heaters that you’re recommending? Very few of them have it themselves. And even if they have it, they didn’t have their company do it. So going back, I’ll say, “Okay, how many of you would really like to get above a 50% closing agreement, with these maintenance agreements? ” They all raise their hand.

And the reason why is really simple. They know that if they get above that number, they’re going to get performance bonuses, right? They’re going to get a commission. And then here’s the bet I make them, first I tell them a little story. I’ll keep it brief, but the story is, until you own something, it’s really challenging to sell it with conviction. When you actually own this as a technician, just imagine the difference when the homeowner says, “Is this worth having? ”

And by the way this is straight from Buford Coleman, the number one club membership salesperson for years and years and years, he sold thousands of these. He told me this lesson almost 20 years ago. I never forgot it because I said, “Buford, come up here and tell me how you sell so many of these.”

I’m thinking it’s going to be some big magical explanation. This is what Buford says. And Buford had a stutter, which I won’t do. But Buford said, “Mrs. Smith, I have one that I have for my company. I don’t even do my own maintenance. I have a technician come do it. I put my feet up while they work. I bought one for my mom and I bought one for my grandmom. And if it’s good enough for your technician, and it’s good enough for my mom and my grandma, it’s certainly good enough for you.”

That’s his entire sales presentation. So this is what I tell the technicians in the room. I say, “Listen, guys, just make a bet with me. Whether it’s club membership, indoor air quality, lights, whatever it is, make a bet with me. Go purchase, at full price. Absolutely. Never a discount. Don’t get the family friends discount. Go purchase at full price. Whatever it is that your company has to offer that you want to sell more of, have your company install it, put your feet up.

And one year from now, when you’re in the home, because you are experiencing the joy and the benefits of this and you can actually speak about it from a real life experience, if you haven’t made far more money in performance, bonuses, commissions, whatever you want to call it than what you paid, you pick up the phone and call me and I will give you the difference of what you lost.”

Roy, in 20 years, how many people have ever pick up the phone and call me and say, “Todd, you know What? I spent $5,000 and you owe me three because I only made 2,000 in commissions.” How many?

Roy Williams: Zero.

Todd Liles: Not one.

Roy Williams: Of course.

Todd Liles: Not one.

Roy Williams: True story. As a young man, when he was still alive, I had on three different occasions, personal time for an hour or more with Zig Ziglar. And…

Todd Liles: You know, I love Zig Ziglar. 

Roy Williams: Yeah, I do, too. I’m a monster Zig Ziglar fan.

Todd Liles: Yazoo, Mississippi.

Roy Williams: Yeah. And what he was telling me was in Yazoo, Mississippi, he had a personal friend as a young man when he was just becoming a motivational speaker and a trainer. And his friend came to him and he said, “Zig, I…” He sold waterless cookware.

Let me tell you how long ago this was. It was like in the 1970s that waterless cookware was, like, unbelievably expensive. And these, the lids, and it was all basically like a pressure cooker. But it wasn’t a pressure cooker. The seal on the lid would cause you to be able to cook. Like, you take frozen vegetables, dump them in, add no water, and you would, like, steam things on the stove. But there was no actual pressure because, you know, the lid, you could lift it off, but it was heavy. And the surfaces were mated so perfectly that would form a seal. And the vacuum, you couldn’t break the vacuum. See what I mean? You have to spin the lid just to break the vacuum and lift it off. It’s really very high tech.

Now, keep in mind making, like $3.35 an hour, waterless cookware is $800 for a complete set. This is in the ’70s, $800 for a complete set. This man was selling waterless cookware. Big commissions in that 800 bucks, of course, and he wasn’t selling any. And he was a good friend of Zig and says, “Zig, I’m going to lose my house. I’m going to go under. It’s like, I can’t sell this stuff.” And he said, “I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what to do. My life is in ruins. And I thought I was going to make this money. My savings are all gone.”

And he goes, “Well, what should I do? ” And he says, “Do you own a set of that cookware? ” And he goes, “I can’t afford it.” And he goes, “And if you’ll listen to me, I’ll help you.” And he says, “What is it? ” And he goes, “Everybody that you know, everybody that you know, go to him and borrow some money and tell him, you have to buy a set of this cookware for full price, the 800 bucks.” And he says, “If you go and you buy that cookware for the same price, you’re asking everybody else to buy it. And you start using it every night when you cook dinner, you and your wife, you cook dinner with this waterless cookware.”

So the guy did it. He said he believed me. He went out and he just figured out everything he could hock, everything he could sell, everything he could borrow against. And he said he put together $800, he bought the cookware. And he said, one year later, this guy was the top salesman nationwide in the whole company. Because when he didn’t have any money or he didn’t when he didn’t have the cookware, okay, people say, “Man, I couldn’t afford that.”

And in his heart, he’s going, “Yeah, I can’t afford it either. I don’t have it because I can’t afford it.” And he says, but the pain he went through to get a set of it and then the confidence it gave him because he cooked with it every night and he did. See, this is really amazing. It really does do things differently now because it was so expensive and because it was always sold as kind of a, wasn’t sold in stores. It was always kind of a door to door thing, it lost its popularity because of how it was sold, but yet it really was an extraordinary product. Really was.

We bought a set and still have it and use it to this day. And we’ve been married 48 years, okay, 49. The point is, it’s the same story you told. And Zig Ziglar told it to me like 30 years ago. And so, yeah, if you want to sell, I’m glad you thought of that. I knew it, but it didn’t pop into my head. If you want to sell something that you can’t afford, buy it at full price. Buy it at the same price you’re trying to sell it to somebody else. And if you buy it at the price you’re trying to sell at somebody else and you let the company do what the company does and you’re not going to get involved. You’re going to watch your coworkers work with your house, right?

Todd Liles: I love it.

Roy Williams: And then you’ll be able to close.

Todd Liles: Well, Roy, thank you for that. You know, I probably learned it from Zig and all the hours that I listened to riding around. That’s probably why I knew to do that. We’re going to look at an ad today. And this is an aspirational ad, but it’s also a humorous ad. So everyone, when you hear this ad or you’re watching it, you’re know it instantly.

 

Do you remember that ad? 

Roy Williams: Yeah. As a matter of fact, I can tell you things about that ad that nobody knows.

Todd Liles: Oh, please.

Roy Williams: Right. So number one, it was shot with no edits.

Todd Liles: That was shot with no edits.

Roy Williams: No edits. There’s no edits in that. No edits whatsoever. One camera shoot and no edits. And you can actually find on YouTube where it shows the way they mechanically did all of that. And so the director had this vision and that’s what he wanted to do. Now that’s a Procter & Gamble product.

Todd Liles: Yeah, they’re great, aren’t they?

Roy Williams: Yeah. And the guy who was the head of television production for Procter & Gamble, who was there for 37 years, was named Mark Huffman. Close friend of mine, and used to come twice a year for like 15 years and teach at Wizard Academy. And so this is the head of television production, the head of all television ads for decades at Procter & Gamble. And so he hired Wieden and Kennedy.

Wieden and Kennedy, maybe it’s pronounced Wieden and Kennedy. I’m not sure. I’ve heard it both ways. And it was this advertising firm that was known for kind of like the Wizard of Ads partners doing things way outside the box, really crazy. Different things than what anybody else does. And of course, we’re way too small to go to work for Procter & Gamble. Even though I’ve spoken there many times to marketing managers, Wieden and Kennedy’s big enough to work for Procter & Gamble. And they kept sending a request for a proposal RFP. And Wieden and Kennedy would never respond.

And finally they said, “Why would you not respond to our request for proposal? We have the largest ad budget on the face of the earth, ” which at that time was $11 billion a year. 11 billion is their ad budget. It’s more than the number two and three advertiser combined at the time. And so what happened is they said, “Well, it’s because you guys are such tight asses. It’s just like you’re just so uptight. Anything that would work, you wouldn’t let us do. And we don’t even want to have to listen to you be all uptight and stodgy and scared and weird.”

And so Mark Huffman talked to his boss, Mark Pritchard, CEO at Procter $ Gamble, and he said, “Hey, man, let me go to them.” He said, “Let’s think of three products that are just in the basement. Three products that were just getting killed and just they can’t go anywhere but up. They’re just so bad. We’re not taking any risk at all. And let me make these guys a contract that says, we sign this contract, you can do anything you want. We approve it in advance. Whatever you do, we will air it.” And they said, “Okay, sure. Which products can we choose from? ” And Old Spice body wash for Men was the one they chose. 

Now, keep this in mind. Think about this, our partner, Michael Torbay, actually has a bit that he does about this, and he says, “Now think about it. This is a product for men, and they’re pitching it to women. Why? Because women buy all the body wash. Men, they just use whatever’s in the shower, okay? ” And he says, “Ladies, look at your man. Now look at me. Look back at your man. Now look at me.”

He goes, “Wait a minute. This is a guy, shirtless, the embodiment of masculinity, and he’s hitting on your wife.” And he goes, “In your house, on television, he’s hitting on your wife.” And he goes, “How can this go wrong? ” And he says… But the thing was, it was so amazing. It won the year that it was produced and aired, the worldwide Effie Award. Now, Effie means efficiency in advertising is the measured return on investment. This is a branding ad. It is not sales activation. There’s no special offer. There’s no special price. There’s no limited time, right? This is just straight customer bonding. This is just creating more respect for the product. Axe for Men was number one by miles and miles and miles, and Old Spice body wash for men was, like, number three or four, and a category of only three.

You know, I mean, it was like there was nowhere, it came to number one with a bullet, skyrocketed past Axe for Men and made a difference that year of $400 million in profit at Procter & Gamble. And so the bottom line is, whenever they said, “Okay, well, here’s a product that nobody buys, ” right? And so they came at it from such an interesting angle, you know, no, it won’t make him me, but he’ll smell like he’s me.

Todd Liles: Yeah.

Roy Williams: He says, quit buying body wash that makes your man smell like a lady.

Todd Liles: Yeah.

Roy Williams: And so you’re just going, this is great writing. And then they got this guy to act it, and they shot it in such a dramatic way. And I could take you through just all kinds of stuff in the ad that you don’t know are there, but they affect you. But that would be a whole show by itself. The point is of course it worked. Of course it worked. And it was because Mark Huffman realized, “Huh, we know these guys are crazy. That’s why we want them. And they don’t want to work for us because we’re not crazy. So what would be a thing that would give them confidence? How can we give them confidence? Give them a contract that says, we’ll run it. We don’t have to approve it. We approve it in advance.”

And they said, “Okay, you’ve changed the rules. New decision based on new information.” You guarantee you’ll run it no matter what. And so they had pre approval. And that’s why they brought out this amazing ad that made this unbelievable difference.

Todd Liles: So as I listen to these things that you’re saying, what comes to my mind is something that you said in previous episodes, which is really, really good, advertisement has portions of science built into it, but it’s an art. Clearly an artist did this. I’m also hearing that if you’re going to stand out, at some point, you’re going to have to be brave because doing this sort of thing is scary. It’s not direct response. It isn’t saying buy something now, you’re putting money behind it.

But if you’re brave and you do something that has a lot of art with it, with really smart people, it’s going to produce results. And then the other thing, the last thing that I’m really hearing you say a lot here is that people aren’t actually buying products. They’re buying who they want to become. They’re buying an identity.

Roy Williams: And so again, speak to the heart and the mind will follow. The mind will always create logic to justify what the heart has already decided.

Todd Liles: That’s a wrap.

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