The Best Business Book Of The Last 101 Years

When Creativity Fails… There’s One “Obvious” Solution

The constant rain drove me crazy. I escaped to a local coffee shop. I pouted the second I walked in.

“What the hell are all these people doing here?”

The entire town packs into a local coffee shop whenever it rains. There must be some psychology behind that. Maybe we feel a sense of loneliness when it rains. We all converge at coffee shops to cure that lonely feeling.

Or, maybe there’s a simple explanation. It’s one of the few things we can do indoors when it rains.

Sometimes the answers are super simple. Sometimes we don’t need to search for deeper meanings or hidden causes.

Sigmund Freud said:

“Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.”

The simple, obvious answer brings to mind one of the most impactful business books I’ve ever read. It was written one hundred years ago.

This experience inspired me to read it again.

The Best Business Book In The Last 101 Years?

No, it’s not Think And Grow Rich.

The name of the book is Obvious Adams.

Published in 1916, it’s the story of a copywriter, ad man who rises through the ranks. He writes great ads that beat out established, top writers.

He lacks the creativity and writing skills of his competition.

His method seems too simple to produce his staggering results.

He finds what’s obvious about a situation and writes about it. The genius lies in the simplicity.

In one part of the story, it tells of Adams’ start in the ad business. A campaign just failed. The client threatened to quit. The failed ad was masterful. It was poetry in motion.

Does Creativity Get In The Way Of Selling?

The stuff Adams wrote was homely (his words). It screamed simplicity. He had one advantage. It exposed an obvious answer. When Adams’ boss saw his copy he liked what he saw.

“We have done too much advertising and not enough selling.”

The big wigs with the creative ideas failed. Their deep dive into creativity caused them to overlook the obvious.

Some of his obvious ideas seem silly when you hear them out of context.

• Packaging cakes in more enticing boxes.
• A retail store missed sales targets. He found the entrance hidden from the street view.
• He pointed out the unique qualities of paper, obvious to the business owner, but unknown to the rest of the world.

The Most Important Question You’re Not Asking

That last point hits home with me. I keep this at the top of my pre-writing checklist. I ask this question at the beginning of every campaign.

What’s obvious about this product or service to you but unknown to everyone else?

A question as simple as that yields better ideas than anything creative you dream up.

I recommend this book to everyone in business, even if you’re not a writer. It’s 99 cents on Amazon. You can read it in a few hours.

It serves as a good reminder. Don’t ignore the obvious.

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