I have a new article up at American Small Business.

Check it out.

You wanna read something that'll blow your mind?

Check out this presentation by Juan Enriquez from the TED website.

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/juan_enriquez_on_genomics_and_our_future.html

Wow...the world will never be the same.

(thanks for the tip Chuck Stikl)

For those of you who don't know, I am a contributing editor at the American Small Business metablog.  On Friday, I wrote a post about the pro's and con's of Liberty Tax's street level guerilla marketing campaign.

Read more about it at www.americansmallbusiness.com

Just want to make sure that everyone knows that the big event for January 15th at Tuscan Hall is ON.

I am really excited by the early response and the RSVPs and registrations rolling in already (especially given that most people have yet to start thinking about next year yet).

Here is the itinerary:

The world is changing with each passing day, as technology fuels an emerging generation that is rewriting all the rules of business and communication.  Act One spells out the forces at work and includes the famous Wizard Of Ads presentation “The Pendulum,”  adapted for the One Man Brand curriculum.

One Man Branding is a values-based marketing strategy designed specifically for local, owner-operated companies. 
In this primer, Ray will explain the 12 core components of building a One Man Brand.  These principles offer a new lens
for business owners who want to get better results from their advertising, marketing, onliine and word-of-mouth efforts.

Knowing the folks at Tuscan Hall, it’s bound to be something good.

The One Man Brand Bootcamp is not merely hypothetical or philosophical.  In the third act, we’ll tie it all together with a myriad of specific action items that attendees can take home and implement:  how to create bulletproof strategies,  how to improve  messaging, how to buy word-of-mouth, how to get the most impact from the web, how to innovate, and more.


For the first time, Ray is unveiling his newest keynote session, “Rah Rah Radio,” explaining why radio remains the strongest branding tool for building a One Man Brand.  Past the “why,” you’ll learn “how” to unleash radio’s potential with solid research and buying strategies and powerful creative campaigns.

Here's hoping you and your's have a great holiday.

We'll see you on the other side.

One of our Wizard of Ads partners Joshua Stevens brought this article to my attention this morning.  It paints a bleak picture, to be sure. 

In my own experience, I had a media sales rep in a major city tell me that his station lost $1 million in billing just from mortgage/banking advertisers that went away.  Approximately 10% of their billing just disappeared.  Poof!

Of course, his sales manager (and at its core, "his" shareholders) still have their goals to hit.

This hammers home my point that there should be some terrific opportunities to get some great deals with radio stations in 2009.

And since I believe that radio remains the most powerful tool with which to build your One Man Brand...there is good news on that front.

from...
http://www.reuters.com/article/email/idUSTRE4B287U20081203

No relief in sight as radio ad revenue declines
Wed Dec 03 22:34:40 UTC 2008
By Jeffrey Yorke and Katy Bachman

NEW YORK (Billboard) - Newly released data suggests that the U.S. radio industry could be on track to record its worst annual drop in ad revenue in decades.

According to the Radio Advertising Bureau (RAB), total ad revenue for all U.S. radio markets dropped 10 percent in October from a year earlier. Local revenue fell 15 percent, while national revenue slipped 1 percent.

October marked the industry's 18th consecutive month of year-on-year revenue declines, according to James Boyle, a senior broadcast analyst at research firm C.L. King & Associates in New York.

Given that total ad revenue is down 7 percent year to date through the end of October, the continuing decline evokes comparisons to 2001, when ad revenue was down 7 percent for the entire year, Boyle said in a November 24 research note. But, he observed, that was against a tough comparison to 2000, when revenue grew 12 percent.

"One actually has to go all the way back to 1954, when radio ad revenue was down 9 percent against the prior year's dip of 2 percent" to find a worse decline, Boyle said. "1954 was the fourth straight year of substantial radio advertising underperformance versus total domestic ad revenue."

That was also the year, Boyle quipped, "when 'The Lone Ranger' had its last new radio episode and Sen. Joseph McCarthy was railing against hidden Communists."

BLEAK PROGNOSIS

The future doesn't appear bright, Boyle said. "If the recession lasts for all of 2009 and the weakness persists in many of the major radio ad categories, such as auto, to the point where spending severely plunges, then it may be 2010 or beyond before radio revives," he said.

The dismal October numbers came on the heels of the RAB's release of more detailed data on ad revenue in the third quarter. Despite the benefit of political advertising leading up to the November 4 U.S. election, ad revenue in the three months ended September 30 totaled $4.9 billion, down 9 percent from the same period of 2007. Year to date, total revenue stood at $14.8 billion, down 7 percent from a year earlier.

Local and national on-air revenue dropped 11 percent to $4.2 billion in the quarter. Even network radio, a segment that has defied the rest of the business by managing to grow during the first half of the year, was down 3 percent to $285 million. Off-air revenue, including online advertising, rose in the quarter but managed to grow just 5 percent to $458 million, slowing from the double-digit percentage gains posted in the first two quarters of 2008.

There was little good news for radio's core on-air business with local advertising, which accounts for about 80 percent, falling 10 percent in the third quarter to $3.5 billion. National spot advertising remained the weakest segment, down 12 percent to $767 million.

Amid the recent financial market turmoil, concerns about a deepening recession and a slowdown in consumer spending, the outlook for all local media, including radio, looks tough, according to Marci Ryvicker, a senior analyst at Wachovia Capital Markets in New York.

"Our sources tell us that spending from all major ad categories -- auto, retail, telecom and financial services -- has come to a substantial slowdown,'' Ryvicker noted in a November 24 report.

As a result, she now expects U.S. radio ad revenue to fall 8 percent in 2008 and 2009, compared with a 2 percent decline in 2007.

One of the big questions on everyone's minds heading into the holidays was what kind of holiday retailers would have.  Based on my research, I'm getting mixed signals.

Wall Street Journal offered the following:

Holiday Shopping Off to Strong Start

Unprecedented 'Door-Buster' Deals Send Sales Up Significantly Over Last Year, but Crowds Thin on Saturday
http://tiny.cc/GNkMR

New York Times offered the folowing headline:

Consumer Confidence Declines to a 16-Year Low

Truthfully, they could both be true.  We could have seen a spike over the shopping weekend that was not sustainable.

Today was the first half of the One Man "Stand" in Guatemala City, and I have to say that it is turning out to be a total trip.  For starters, I had to trim out a good chunk of my material in order to accommodate the interpreter and the lag time for the wireless translators that about half of the people wore. This first seminar was about 50 business owners here in Guatemala City and another 40 media reps from radio stations we bartered with for promotion.

Our hosts are Universidad de San Pablo, a very young university that shares a lot of the same spunk and spirit of our own Wizard Academy back in Austin. These guys are definitely my kinda crazy.  When WA was in its embryonic stage in the detached glorified garage building behind our Buda offices, it was fun to watch Roy and Pennie Williams (my then bosses and now business partners) lay out the vision for what has become our 30 acre campus.  Point being...you see the same wild enthusiasm from Sandra and Willy and Bea when they map out where they want to take Universidad de San Pablo.  I have no doubt they'll get there.

My first module was an hour on the ten core principles of One Man Branding, and then I drilled substantially deeper on the issue of emotion versus logic.  It was all well received, and at the half-time break, I was riding pretty high. When I came back, my business partner Wicho Lopez did a quick extension of my One Man Brand principles, specifically with examples from his native tongue and Guatemala specifically.  Gauging by the response he got, it must have been really insightful. (I reeeeeeeeally need to work on my Spanish before I come back to Latin America.

I finished with what as become a signature presentation from the Wizard of Ads group.  We call it "The Pendulum," a 90-minute exploration of how society recycles its worldview every forty years.  It always brings the house down, and today I think we took it to a new level.

Remember, I am a gringo.  I am speaking in English while interpreter Super Elmer is translating my words into español.  And for the last 45 minutes of the day, we do the traditional question and answer, and boy is this crowd loaded for bear...really insightful and amazing insights.  During Q&A, I had a headset (all wireless, really top notch) and the translator would translate the question from the audience back to me in English and then Wicho and I would tag team the response, me in English (translated back) and Wicho en español...and the coolest part was I got the translation of Wicho's spanish answers to the questions I was addressing in English..so we were riffing back and forth in two languages in real time.  what a trip.  Amazing day!

Heading out now for a good steak, some Monday Night Football en español, a sightseeing trip tomorrow to Antigua (de Guatemala...not the island), and then we'll do it all over again tomorrow night with the first ever One Man Brand Student Edition.

y'know...for the kids.   

Spent the last two days out at Wizard Academy taking the Blogging and Website Workshop from Dave Young and Paul Boomer.  Great class, from all over the world (dude from New Zealand was a trip).

Anyway, why do I always look like a goober in the class picture.

Read More to see me hogging up the frame...good grief!

How effin' cool is this spanish language flyer for my One Man Brand Bootcamp coming up in Guatemala next week?

Who else besides me thinks that Wicho Lopez is that rare bird, that genius who can do everything from making music to marketing and public speaking to even exceptional design work?

Click thru and 'read more' to see the larger version in all its charm and glory.