As the team was clearing the field from their turn at bat, the umpire looked at her watch and declared the game was over as time had expired. As our seven-year-old, Lucy, was packing up and getting ready to leave I asked her who won. She looked at me with that devilish grin of hers, shrugged her shoulders and said “I don’t know. We weren’t keeping score!”

“If you’re not keeping score, why do you play?” I asked. She just smiled and said, “Because it was fun.”

As we left the ballpark and headed for home I was reminded of a conversation I had with industry great, Frank Blau, back in 1991. I have been blessed with many things over the years and meeting Frank up close and personal is right up there at the top of the list.

I can’t help but peek across the parking lot to see if I can recognize any faces through the window of the supply house. Not always, but most of the time I can see the same guys jawing at the counter who were there when I’d go in to buy my supplies. They’re still driving the same trucks, wearing the same uniforms, having the same conversations about how business is down.

The only thing that’s changed for most of these guys is the color of their hair.

What these guys don’t realize is that they’re only verifying to one another that it’s okay for business to be slow. The thought among the group is that as long as times are slow for everyone, doing less business is okay.

It’s estimated that the average American is exposed to more than 3,000 commercial messages a day, and as a whole $620 billion is spent each year by businesses with the aim of making their product more desirable to the public (Union of Concerned Scientists, http://www.ucsusa.org/publications/).

So how do we maximize our advertising spending to make sure we’re capturing and keeping as much business as possible? Read on to learn the secrets to successful advertising: