QUICK MIRACLES
by Roy Williams
www.WizardOfAds.com

Youíre a wounded soldier in unbearable pain during WWII, so the medics give you a shot of morphine. When your pain returns, they give you another shot. Morphine erases pain, so as long as the medics donít run out of morphine, thatís the end of your problem, right?

Not quite. Youíre still wounded, remember? The morphine is merely masking your symptoms. What you really need is life-saving surgery and a time of rehabilitation.

So what do you want me to pull out of my bag right now, Mr. Wounded-Soldier-in-Pain? Surgical tools, the solution to your problem? Or morphine, that tasty little drug that takes away the pain while you continue to bleed and die? Oh? You say that what you really want is to swallow a pill that will make the pain go away and heal the wound so that itís like you were never wounded at all? Sorry, that pill doesnít exist.

So what do you want to see me pull out of the bag?

Pain is your bodyís warning that is has a problem that requires your immediate attention. Consequently, every businessperson in financial pain needs to understand the following:

1. Your business is telling you that it has a problem that requires your immediate attention.

2. ìSlow trafficî or ìa downward sales trendî is not the problem, but merely a symptom of it.

3. At best, every fast-acting Ad Gimmick is a painkiller exactly like morphine.

4. Morphine very quickly becomes addictive, and if used for too long, it will kill you.

5. No one looks forward to the surgeonís knife, even when itís what he or she desperately needs.

6. Because of their woefully incomplete training, most advertising people are not equipped to perform life-saving surgery, but are outfitted merely as medics to promote their own proprietary brand of morphine.

7. Recovery from life-saving surgery is painful, slow, and not the least bit fun.

8. Playing with morphine, cocaine, heroin and other painkillers is gigantic fun!

Are you beginning to understand why businesspeople are drawn to fast-acting ad gimmicks whenever theyíre in financial pain?

Making morphine is easy, but using it is dangerous, and often deadly.