According to USA Today’s Ad Meter, Budweiser won the Super Bowl’s best commercial for 2025 by bringing back the Clydesdales in their “First Delivery” commercial that reads more like a feel-good Americana movie about an underestimated “hero” proving his worth than a beer ad. Coming in at a close second was Lay’s “Little Farmer” ad, which is identical in storyline to the Budweiser commercial, only using a little girl instead of a pony. There IS a formula there.
Of course, this is all nonsense IF you believe that advertising should be measured by its effectiveness at SELLING something, not just by likes, hashtags or votes from random strangers who may or may not be consumers of your product, which is how Ad Meter operates. Yet this is exactly how so many people judge marketing – by how they feel about it, not how effective it is.
One of the greatest virtues of direct response marketing, which is what ALL of my marketing advice is based on, is its measurement of effectiveness and accountability and ROI, not opinions. We look at what efforts and spend deliver the highest and best clients and return, continually doubling down on the things that work while eliminating or reducing the spend on things that don’t.
I’ve been told by a few members who exit that the reason they’re canceling is that they don’t “like” my style of marketing. They think it’s too pushy, too direct or “unprofessional.” I once had the owner of a small MSP storm out of one of our events, indignant over the fact that I quoted Zig’s famous line “Timid salespeople have skinny kids.” He told my staff upon leaving that he would “rather be broke than use that approach to marketing and selling.” Given he was only doing about $200K in sales at the time means he’s at least fulfilling on his personal mission.
As Hill pointed out in Think And Grow Rich, “accurate thinking” is critical to success because it forces you to separate between what is true and relevant from what you’d like to believe is true and relevant. The former client who stormed out of our event madder than a mule chewing bumble bees can be as indignant as he likes over the FACT that effectively winning clients from competitors requires a bold, determined, dare I say “aggressive” sales outreach IF you want to grow beyond the occasional referral, but he then has to also accept the fact he’ll likely end up like the majority of MSPs who never break the million-dollar mark, never have a successful exit and never achieve any level of financial freedom. THAT’S accurate thinking.
At the recent Q1 Producers Club meeting, I hosted Billy Beane, former general manager of the Oakland A’s MLB team and inspiration for the movie Moneyball, starring Brad Pitt. If you’re unfamiliar with the concept, you should read the book or at least watch the movie. At its core, Moneyball was a data-driven approach to building a winning team that changed the game forever.
Instead of using the old traditional ways of recruiting good players based on external factors, their physical appearance and gut feel, it used pure statistical analysis to build a highly effective team on a budget, emphasizing metrics like on-base percentages.
Great marketing should be measured the same way. Not by gut feel, not by likes, not by popularity. Results, period.
Recently I helped a client plan out her marketing budget for the year. Thankfully, this member is very diligent about tracking her metrics and lead sources, as well as removing emotions and opinions from the results. But after reviewing everything, I found one key piece of data missing – the value of the client secured by source, not just the number of leads and sales generated by campaign.
Upon further analysis, we discovered her BEST customers came from trade shows and our “Plant The Farm” prospecting campaigns, not the dozen other marketing initiatives she was running. With this new insight, we decided to put more of the budget on those campaigns instead of campaigns that were generating more leads but producing lower-converting, lower-value clients.
Back to Billy Beane… He said something truly profound during our interview: “Everybody likes data and facts when it supports their point of view.” So true. I’m sure the marketing department over at Budweiser are high-fiving each other with the approval ratings of their ads. Maybe it’s justified if sales increase. But could they point back to THAT commercial as the reason? Who knows. What I do know is that it takes guts to step back and really look at what you’re doing, accurately correlating success to the things that are actually producing the outcomes you want instead of the things you like or WANT TO BELIEVE are the reasons for your success. selling proposition. You just need to know how to pick up the damned phone and take someone’s money.
At Boot Camp 2025, we’re not here to make you feel good about your marketing. We’re here to make sure it works. This event is where you’ll get proven, data-driven strategies that actually generate leads, close high-value clients and drive real growth—not just engagement numbers and empty impressions.
This is your Moneyball moment. Stop guessing, stop relying on gut feelings, and start making marketing decisions based on results. Join us and get the exact campaigns, scripts and sales strategies that have helped MSPs break the million-dollar mark and beyond.
Secure your spot now at www.RobinsBigSeminar.com and build a marketing system that actually delivers.
