It all started a week ago. I was driving home from another long, waste-of-time sales meeting, at the office, when I noticed a strange sensation in my mouth. It began as a slight annoying throbbing. Being the macho-type guy I was, I tried to ignore it while getting through the following day. But it persisted and eventually commanded my full attention. So, days later, when I woke up and decided that the entire national armed forces had decided to conduct an all-out training exercise in my mouth with live ammo and bombs, it was time to focus on the real problem.

I hate dentists. More precisely, I hate having them peer at me while hovering with an assortment of evil-looking, stainless-steel instruments of mass destruction. With that in mind, I put off the inevitable until the pain had reached a 20 on a scale of 1 to 10. My usual dentist had really put me off the last time we connected, by having me wait and hour for a simple exam and then making some crack about me gaining a few pounds since the last visit.

Therefore, I decided I could do better and headed for the phone book. I paged through it looking for anything that might ease my mind. But almost every ad had the name of the practice in huge letters and some tripe about “Smiles” or “Emergencies.” Well, since I didn’t give a rat’s tail about my smile and figured that every dental issue was some type of emergency, what was up with all these lousy ads?

So I shelved the Yellow Pages and tried a shot of Scotch instead and sucked on some ice for a while. It calmed me down a bit, though I doubted it was doing anything in a medicinal fashion. As the liquor began to take effect, within my gentle haze, an aberration appeared. It took the form of a large, yellow book and actually spoke to me. “I feel your pain,” he, or rather, “it” began. The it’s middle opened to reveal a full-page Yellow Page ad. The ad stated, “Immediate Pain Relief – We Keep our Appointments, Guaranteed or Free!”

I don’t know whether it was the second shot of alcohol or not, but I felt better right away. I memorized the phone number and looked for my phone. Five minutes later, I was booked and ready to meet my new dental savior. The character had stayed long enough to be satisfied and now waddled out the door. It stopped for a second, waved briefly and said, “Just remember it was Wolley Segap to your rescue,”and, with that, it vanished. The end… or is it?

This little story was designed to serve a purpose and illustrate the need for effective advertising. So, attention business people: Is your Yellow Page ad doing its job? If not, let this serve as your wake-up call. I’ve witnessed many companies that thought they had an ad that worked, while, in reality, it had a flawed headline, lousy copy, or pathetic artwork. How do I know?

I was a YP rep and consultant for nearly 25 years and, prior to that, had my own advertising agency. I also have a degree in marketing. I’ve been designing Yellow Page ads for the past three decades. So I have expertise in YP creation and have advised almost 7000 companies on how to put together the most effective YP ads. If you have a display or in-column ad, regardless of size, color or position, I can tell you it most probably needs improvement in the headline, artwork, body text, placement, book, or heading. You must understand the ROI or return on investment and learn how to track the results as well.

So consider getting some expert advice before you place your next ad. There are many good and inexpensive places to turn, some available on the internet. Make sure the consultant is well qualified with at least 25 years experience. Otherwise, you’ll be wasting your own time and money. Then, hopefully, you wont’ really need Wolley Segap coming to the rescue after all.