If you’re a local business investing in mass media advertising, you’re going to have to work with somebody.

Even if you write your own ads and star in them, you’ll still have to work with either a media sales rep or a local ad agency or a consultant like a Wizard of Ads partner.

So you’ll be placing low to high six figures (or more) in the hands of someone else, hoping they know what they’re doing.

Well, here are a few ways to sort out genuine pros from poseurs:

1. They have a strategy that can be explained without jargon or buzzwords and that makes sense when you hear it.

Granted, this is a relatively low bar. But sadly, it’s one that’ll quickly sort out a lot of creative poseurs and media weasels.

If the creatives can’t talk about anything but “breaking through the clutter” or how “cool” something will be or endlessly babble on about brand without tying anything back to revenue, profitability, and ROI, then ditch ‘em and find someone else.

Similarly, if they want to advertise your Ugly Duckling Business like it’s Apple or Tesla or Jack Daniel’s, that’s a clear warning sign as well. If you don’t sell sexy or fashion or packaged goods, your advertising strategy and creative ought to reflect that.

Similarly, if a media rep only talks about the unique demographics of their audience and how it’s a perfect match with your ideal customer, just walk away. Radio and TV are mass media — talking about them as if they were targeted is a sure sign the rep is either dishonest or incompetent.

You might end up doing business with that station, but you absolutely don’t want to trust that particular media weasel any farther than you can throw him.

If you’re going to invest six figures or more into a mass media advertising campaign, you’ll want to work with a professional who has a clear plan for persuasion that’s mapped to a business strategy.

How will this all work, and how will you recoup your investment? Answering those questions in clear plain language is the least you should expect from your ad pros.

2. They’re willing to tie their pay to your performance.

If they’re really confident their advertising can grow your business, they should put their compensation where their mouth is, even if only in the form of future raises or bonuses.

This doesn’t have to be the only way they work or how they usually work, but if they’re unwilling to negotiate along these terms, you should probably walk away.

Given how much you’ve got at risk, isn’t it reasonable that your ad guys should have some skin in the game too?

3. They have a firm understanding of advertising’s limitations — what can’t be done and what you shouldn’t expect

Mass media advertising isn’t magic. There are some hard limits around what it can and cannot do.  For example:

    • Branding campaigns don’t work overnight. Or even over a month. So if a mass media rep wants to sell you a short schedule for a branding campaign, you know who you’re dealing with.
    • Advertising can’t create success where success doesn’t deserve to live (you can’t be crappy at what you do and expect great ads to make up the difference). So if your ad guy couldn’t care less about whether you’re actually good at what you do, watch out.
    • Advertising can’t make people care about anything they don’t already care about. You can’t change consumer behavior, you can only channel it.
    • Advertising can’t grow your market — it can only steal marketshare from competitors

If your ad pro doesn’t talk about those limitations and have plans for working within them, then you shouldn’t trust him with your budget.

An Example of How These Signs Look in Conversation

Here’s an example of how those bullet points might impact your conversation with a genuine expert:

Since ads can’t make people care about what they don’t already care about, they can’t make people buy externally-triggered services absent that external trigger.

If you’re not in the market for a moving company, my ads simply can NOT convince you to hire my client’s moving company. Period.

I can only convince you to buy from my client WHEN the time comes that you actually need a moving company.

If you launch a branding campaign, you’ll have to give it time to work on the audience, and then you’ll have to wait until members of that audience need your moving service.

Similarly, the ads I create for you can’t expand the market for moving services in your area. They can only convince people who would have used someone else to hire you instead.

And finally, if you suck at moving people, my ads can’t convince someone their buddy is lying when he explains how you delivered his stuff to the wrong house and half of it arrived broken.

Nor can my ads overcome your receptionist’s inability to answer the phone, etc. Success will only live where it deserves to live.

So my advertising strategy will have to take all that into account, and I’ll need to explain both these limitations and the strategy to you BEFORE you start cutting big checks to the radio or TV stations — before you start trusting me with your ad budget.

So… if you’re currently advertising on mass media and your ad people don’t meet these criteria — or if you’re about to start advertising on mass media and you want to ensure you’re working with the right people — give me a call and we’ll talk.

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