Claude Hopkins’ autobiography is not a celebration of personal achievement, but a practical manual for aspiring advertisers, rooted in decades of hands-on experience. He stresses that true success comes from relentless work, not innate talent, and that his methods—such as small-scale testing, direct customer observation, and rigorous result tracking—can be replicated by others. Growing up in poverty and working door-to-door taught him to understand common people’s values, struggles, and desires, making his advertising deeply relatable. He dismisses formal education in advertising as impractical, favoring real-world experience over theory. A core lesson is the power of service over sales: instead of demanding payment, offering free trials or samples builds trust and drives action. Hopkins champions experimentation, showing how creative ideas—like making carpet sweepers look different—can create unexpected demand. His career illustrates that breakthroughs come from seeing problems differently, not from following standard practices. Despite achieving immense success, he remains humble, acknowledging that his path was one of sacrifice and uncertainty. He reflects on the emotional cost of ambition, noting that while he attained fame and wealth, he often missed the quiet joys of a simple life. Ultimately, his work underscores that advertising success hinges not on flashy techniques, but on empathy, observation, and a relentless commitment to understanding human behavior. The book remains a timeless resource because its principles—experiential learning, customer insight, and service-based selling—are still foundational in modern marketing.
This book is not written as a personal history, but as a business story.
I have tried to confine myself to matters of instructive interest.
The chief object behind every episode is to offer helpful suggestions to those who will
follow me, and to save them some of the midnight grouping which I did.
Any man who by a lifetime of excessive application learns more about anything than others owes
his statement to successors.
The results of research should be recorded.
Every pioneer should blaze his trail.
That is all I've tried to do.
My only claim for credit is that I have probably worked twice as long as anybody else in this
field.
I have lived for many years in a vortex of advertising.
Naturally, I learn more from experience than those who've had a lesser chance.
Now I want that experience so far as possible to help others avoid the same difficult climb.
I set down these findings solely for the purpose of aiding others to start far up the heights
I scaled.
There is nothing to be gained for myself, save the satisfaction.
Had someone set down a record like this when I began, I would have blessed him for it.
Then with the efforts I here describe, I might have attained some peaks in advertising
beyond any of us now.
Man, I live to see others do that.
That is Claude Hopkins describing the why behind writing his autobiography.
That's an excerpt from the book I'm going to talk to you about today, which is my life
in advertising written by Claude Hopkins.
Before I jump back into the book, let me quickly tie this into everything else we've been learning
last week.
I did another biography on David Ogrevey.
David talks about all the people that influenced his career, all the ideas that he picked up
from people that came before him, that he applied to his work and found in his company.
One of those is Claude Hopkins.
He says in his own books, the ones he wrote as well, that you should read the autobiography
of Claude Hopkins and you should read scientific advertising by Claude Hopkins.
He says, in fact, on scientific advertising, he says you should read it seven times.
They are both very old books.
Scientific advertising was first published in 1923, but it was held secret for 20 years
because they thought the person that owned the firm that Claude worked for, nothing information
was too valuable.
It's almost 120 years old, and then this autobiography was published in 1927.
I read both books to prepare for this podcast.
I'm going to work solely from his autobiography.
If you want to read both books, I would recommend reading scientific advertising first, use
it as a reference, and then read the autobiography to see how those lessons are applied.
I think that's the smart move.
Let me go ahead and jump into the introduction.
These books have been republished many, many times.
Scientific advertising alone is sold over 8 million copies.
I want to talk about praise for his autobiography that comes all the way back from 1946.
Let me read this quote to you.
He says, "There are a few pages in my life in advertising which do not repay careful study
and which do not merit rereading.
Before your eyes, a successful advertising life is lived, with all that went to making
it successful.
The lessons taught are taught exactly as they were learned.
They are dished up dripping with life.
It is not a book.
It is an experience.
Experience has always been the great teacher."
Okay, so that's a good overview of why reading this book is beneficial.
Before I get into some of the lessons from his career, I want to start with his early
life.
Oh, let me stop for a second.
If you've never come across Claude Hopkins ever, he's widely known as probably the greatest
copywriter of all time.
He was so good at his profession.
He had such an obsession and dedication to his craft that he winds up being recruited by
Albert Lasker, who is one of the greatest advertising founders of all time.
He was paid around, what would be equivalent, about four million dollars a year on the
basis of how good he was at writing ads that sold products.
So that's why he's worthy of study.
He was arguably the best of his kind, excuse me, the best of his time, rather.
Okay, so let me go ahead and jump into his early life.
He says, "Boys, they say, gain most of their qualities from their mothers."
Certainly, I inherited from mine, conspicuous conservatism.
The lack of that quality has wrecked more advertising men, more business men than anything
else I know.
That fact will be emphasized again and again in this book.
I stress it here in tribute to the source of my prudence.
Safety first has always been my guiding star.
A Scottish mother is the greatest asset a boy can have who desires a career in advertising.
An economy and caution are instinctive with him, they are fundamentals.
Success, saved by accident, is impossible without them.
So what he's referencing there is in advertising, some people will spend large amounts of money
without actually knowing if they're effective or not.
His clause, Modus operandi, he does a lot of small tests.
He wants to prove that it's effectiveness before doing it on a large scale and then once
you prove it's effectiveness, you bet heavy.
He says, "Let's go back to his influence of his mother."
His mother plays a large role.
He wants to become alienated from her later on because she's a religious fundamentalist.
When he admits that he doesn't share her views, she says stuff like, "Oh, you're no
long my son."
He was largely raised by his mother.
His father dies, I think when he's nine years old.
Even though at the time he's writing this book, his mother's long dead, he was alienated
from her.
About learning most of the values of his career, that he uses to apply in his career, advertising
came from her and this is about his mother teaching him industry and he specifically references
that she did the work of three or four women.
So it says, "Because of my mother, a dime to me has always looked as big as a dollar.
Not my dimes only, but the other fellow's dimes as well."
So he's referencing obviously when your businesses are hiring him to do their advertising spend.
So just as he's going to be free will and make sure he's getting value for his own money,
he does the same thing for his clients.
I have spent them carefully, both as an owner and a trustee.
I have never gambled in a large way where they're acting for myself or for others.
So the failures I've made and there are many have never counted strongly against me.
I have escaped the distrust engendered by conspicuous disaster.
When I lost, I lost little in money and nothing in confidence.
When I won, I often gained millions from my clients and a wealth of prestige for myself.
That I largely owe to my mother.
I owe her vastly more.
She taught me industry.
I can scarcely remember an hour, a night or a day when mother was not at work.
She was a college graduate with great intellectual powers.
There came a time when, as a widow, she had to support her children by teaching school.
Before and after school, she did the housework.
In the evenings, she wrote kindergarten books for schools.
When vacation came, when vacation came, she tramped from school to school to sell them.
She did the work of three or four women.
She developed three or four careers.
From my earliest years, under her direction and incentive, I did likewise.
I have supported myself since the age of nine.
And he using that age, that line of demarcation as a time when he had to support himself because
of his father passing away.
He says, "Other boys," so he talks about it.
I went to school, but I didn't use that as that was just my day.
That was just one thing that I had to do, but I had to work as well.
He says, "And then he's going to compare and contrast his approach out of young age to
other boys that were his same age."
Other boys, when they went to school, as I did, counted their school work as a day.
It was an incident to me.
Before school, I opened two school houses, opened the doors for two school houses, built
the fires and desid the seats.
After school, I swept those school houses.
Then I distributed the newspaper to 65 homes before supper.
On Saturdays, I scrubbed the two school houses and distributed bills.
He uses the word "bills" a lot in the book.
He means like flyers, like ads.
On Sundays, I was a church janitor, which kept me occupied from early morning until 10
o'clock at night.
In vacations, I went to the farm, where the working time was 16 hours a day.
So he's doing this out of necessity.
He talks about a lot in the book, the benefits of growing up poor.
And there's two benefits that he references over and over again about growing up poor.
One, it taught him how to work really hard, which he applies even when he didn't have
to.
And two, it taught him how normal, average people thought.
And he says, the fact that he grew up around the masses, he calls them like the 95%.
Is why he understood how they thought.
And so if you understand how somebody thinks, you can sell to them as well.
And that is also how he thinks about advertising.
And he's credited with many people considered the best description of advertising, which
just salesmanship and print.
It's not, he does not look at advertising as a way to entertain you.
I'm trying to sell a product to you.
And I need to know if my efforts are effective or not.
Okay, so I guess I ran over my own point here because he's going to talk about this work
ethic that he inherited from his mother, stays with them for the rest of his life.
And after years, I did the same in business.
I had no working hours.
And I ceased before midnight, that was a holiday for me.
I often left my office at two o'clock in the morning.
Sundays were my best working days because there were no interruptions.
For 16 years after entering business, I rarely had an evening or a Sunday not occupied
by work.
So let me pause right here in the middle of this.
One thing to one, I think, beneficial thing that I learned from reading this book that
I'll tell you upfront.
He didn't really have any other interests besides advertising.
He was obsessed by it.
And so that's why it's beneficial reading his autobiography because very few people are
going to put as much time and effort as he did.
Not saying that we want to replicate this, in fact, he talks about in this book openly,
and I'll share with you later, you know, doubting that I make the right decision.
You know, I look around and see other people that had lived a more balanced life.
and towards the end.
He dies about five years after he writes this book.
You know, he does arrive at the fact that he was content
with the way he lived his life
because he thought it was true to himself,
but he does see the value in other,
you know, the choice of other lifestyles,
which I found really interesting.
So he says, oh, I guess I'm gonna run over to this point too.
I am not advising others to follow my example.
I would not advise a boy of nine of mine to do so.
Life holds so many other things more important
than success that work in moderation probably brings more joy.
So how would I summarize that section?
I worked all the time.
I would not advise my son to do the same.
There is some difference in brains, of course,
but it is not so important as the difference in industry.
Now, this is a very interesting takeaway.
I'm gonna write this is my note.
I'll read my note too first before I read the section
'cause I might help understand
at least my interpretation of what's happening
at this point in the book.
Maybe you pity the successful, not envy.
The man who does two or three times the work of another
learns two or three times as much.
He makes more mistakes and more successes
and he learns from both.
If I had gone higher than others in advertising
or done more, the fact is not due to exceptional ability
but to exceptional hours.
Now, that makes sense, okay?
If you wanna learn faster, we sell this with Larry Miller.
He takes this job at a, working at an auto part store
and he did that because and he worked from open to close
because he's like, I need to learn fast
and the way to learn fast is by exposing yourself
to more successes and more failures.
This is a clawed Hopkins saying that 100 years ago.
But that makes sense.
You pay more time, you have more experience,
you're gonna learn more, okay?
But this, how he ends this section is a surprising part.
It means that a man has sacrificed all else in life
to excel in this one profession.
It means a man to be pitted rather than envied perhaps.
Now, I appreciate that he used,
that he ended with that one word perhaps
because it leaves, it open to interpretation.
If I, based on reading both of his books,
if I think, in my opinion, if we can bring,
bring clawed Hopkins back from the dead and ask him,
would you do anything different?
I don't think he'd do much different.
'Cause yes, he did work a lot.
Yes, he did make sacrifices for Jusso.
But he also worked remotely, worked from home
for a large part of his career.
And two, he treated work as a game.
And he's got a lot of interesting insights
and I would say perspectives we can adopt around that.
I shall share that with, I'll share more with that later.
I'm still in his early life, though.
This is where he's gonna explicitly talk
about the benefits of poverty, which is very interesting.
Through father I gained poverty.
And that was in another blessing.
Father was the son of a clergyman.
His ancestors far back had been clergymen.
Bread and schooled in poverty.
So this was his natural state.
I owe much to that condition.
It took me among the common people
of whom God made so many.
I came to know them.
They're wants and impulses.
They're struggles and economies, they're simplicity.
Those common people whom I know so well
became my future customers.
When I talk to them, in print or in person,
they recognize me as one of their kind.
And this is something that he feels
that other people made the mistake, they start out poor.
They get rich, they move away.
He stayed in the same community.
In fact, he talks about what they were on.
Having, in some times, because the opportunity
to present itself, having to move Chicago,
having to move bigger cities,
he's like, I don't like this.
I want to go back home.
And towards the end of the book, his insights on the benefit,
he's got a really beautiful writing,
but also beautiful insights towards the end of the book.
But the benefit of living, which is,
I don't even know if I share his,
like, I wouldn't live in the same place my whole life.
But the fact that he did, or towards the end,
maybe the first third of his life,
he lived in the same place, then he had to go on
to seek opportunity.
And then finishing the last movie third,
or 40% of his life, or whatever it was,
gave him insights into potential other outcomes
of his life based on different decisions.
So I don't want to say anymore until I get there,
because the writing's so just amazing.
It's really beautiful writing there.
So let me go back to this.
He's saying, hey, I didn't make the mistake.
I was surrounded by, I grew up with these people.
I stayed around them my whole life.
And as a result of that, I understood them deeply,
and I used those insights and applied it to be better at work.
It's essentially what he's telling us there.
I'm sure that I could not impress the rich,
for I do not know them.
I have never tried to sell what they buy.
And it's very interesting that he says that,
because he's unbelievably rich when he's writing those words.
Okay, so let me continue along this line.
He talks about this a lot.
But in millions of humble homes, the common people
will read and buy.
They will feel that the writer knows them.
And they, and they in advertising,
form 95% of our customers.
To poverty, I owe many experiences
which taught me salesmanship.
Had it not been for poverty,
poverty, I would not have been a house to house canverser.
So door to door salesmen.
It's the word, he uses the word house to house canverser,
but that's what he means.
And there I learned the most I know about human nature
as I applied to spending money.
So a summary of that section is one of the benefits
of poverty is I learn sales.
To poverty, I owe the fact that I never went to college.
I spent those four years in the school of experience
instead of a school of theory.
This is also something.
You're gonna see a lot of the things,
a lot of the high times today is him repeating
certain principles that he learned in different ways.
And I think pitting those principles in different contexts
is extremely important for us,
because repetition is persuasive.
It's how we learn, right?
So this is the problem where he's gonna continue
about the benefit of not going to college.
On the problem with formal business schooling,
we have seen this in many other domains.
When a practitioner reads a theorist,
they usually arrive at the same conclusion,
and that is the way to think about what Claude is saying here.
He's a practitioner and he's reading theory.
This is not very different than when Charlie Munger
calls modern finance education witchcraft.
Of course, we had no advertising courses in my days.
In my day, no courses in salesmanship or journalism.
I'm sure it would be better if we did not have them now.
I have read some of those courses.
They were so misleading, so impractical
that they exasperated me.
Once a man brought me from a great technical school,
their course in advertising and asked me how to improve it.
When I read it, I said, burn it.
You have no right to occupy a young man's most impressive years,
most precious years with rot, with rot like that.
If he spends four years to learn such theories,
he will spend a dozen years to unlearn them.
Then he will be so far behind in the race
that he will never attempt to catch up.
Okay, so he didn't have formal schooling,
but he had a lot of experience in that's where he learns.
He also learns from older people,
people that are further down the life path than him.
And this is an example of this.
This is really interesting,
'cause he learns from a railroad foreman.
And I would say this is like the colonel,
the very beginning of this idea of treating work like play.
So it says, "Another man exerted a remarkable influence
on my impressive years."
He was a railroad section formal.
So this is a person who taught him a lot
in a short amount of time.
He impressed me with the difference between him and his helpers.
He's a supervisor, he's the one running the crew,
and then the people working underneath him.
There's a fast difference between the two.
So the helpers worked from necessity.
They did as little as possible.
They counted the hours to quitting time.
Then on Saturday nights, they would go to the city
and spend all they had earned in a week.
The foreman, by contrast, worked with enthusiasm.
And this is where he sees two different paths,
two different approaches to work,
and decides, "Hey, I'm not taking the boring path."
The men would go at it stoically
and work as the work was a bore.
But the foreman made the work a game.
That man built his own home in the evenings.
So remember what he's talking about,
the difference between him and students.
You know, most people, they just go to school.
That's what they did.
You know, I'm working before school.
I'm going to school and I'm working after school
and I'm working on the weekends.
It's not very much different.
This guy is trying to be productive and he knows
that being productive, especially in his off time,
is going to lead him to an easier life later on.
I like the idea of hard choices, easy life,
as opposed to how most people approach life,
easy choices, easy choices, hard life.
The man would go at it stoically
and work as a bore.
The man built his home in the evenings.
After 10 hour days on the railroad,
he cultivated a garden around it.
Then he married the prettiest girl in the section
and lived a life of bliss.
Eventually, he was called onto some higher post,
but not until I learned a great many lessons from him.
And we're going to get into those lessons right now.
I have to say when I read this section
for some reason, what popped into my mind
was something I learned all the way back
on founders number 125 with the biography of Charles Ketering.
And in that, if you don't know who he is,
he's a genius.
He was extremely influential in the early automobile days.
But he said something in that book that I forgot.
He talks about the value, like, yeah, he went to college
and he went to school.
He was like, but the person I learned most from
was an old wagon maker.
And his name was Hiram Sweeney.
He talks about what you do in your off time.
So during his day, he's Hiram's making wagons.
But when he has no work, he goes to work on Hiram's mind.
He's talking to himself and third person, which is hilarious.
But that idea that I'm constantly learning
and we live this big, beautiful world.
And a lot of us, as we age, we lose that childlike curiosity.
And Hiram's sweet never lost that childlike curiosity.
Charles Ketering lose it either.
And I think there's a lot of value in that lesson.
OK, let's go back to this railroad format, though.
So now he's talking directly to Claude.
He says, look at those fellows, whittling,
discussing railroads, talking politics.
The most that any of them know about a railroad
is how to drive a spike.
They will always do that and know more.
Note--
Know what I have done while they loafed.
Know what, this is, okay, let me read that again
'cause this is kind of weird writing a little bit,
even though usually a really good writer.
Know what I have done while they loafed there this evening,
built most of the porch on my home.
Soon I'll be sitting there in comfort,
making love to a pretty wife.
They will always be sitting on those soap boxes
around the grocery store,
which is work in which is play.
If a thing is useful, they call it work.
If useless, they call it play.
One is as hard as another.
One can be just as much a game as the other.
In both, there is a rivalry.
There's a struggle to excel the rest.
All the difference I see lies in the attitude of mine.
Of mine.
So that's the end of his quote.
That was a long quote from the where I would form it.
I don't even think we ever pulled his name.
It's his idea that there's work to play.
Really, it just comes down to,
the main point of this whole section is like,
all the difference I see lies in the attitude of the mine.
What he's saying is the perspective
in which you look at things.
Think about on Freedom's Forge,
the end of that podcast I did on that book
talks about Henry Kaiser.
Henry Kaiser built over a hundred companies
in his lifetime, built a Hoover Dam.
He's this crazy guy.
But he has one thing I love about him
is his optimism and his refusal
to look at the negative aspects of life.
And so at the very end of that book,
he talks about, they're trying to build,
I forgot what they're building.
Maybe a shipyard or something like that.
And they have to, there's a big storm
that comes through and turns everything to mud.
And one of the workers is crying.
He's like, look at this, look how it's mud.
And Kaiser comes around and he's like,
what do you talk about?
I don't see mud.
He's like, the sun will come out
and turn that mud into like solid ground.
So he says something like, see the sun smell the dirt.
And again, it's just two people looking
at the same exact, the same exact circumstances,
but completely different perspectives.
There's another quote, I can't remember which book.
It's one of the ones we've talked about recently.
And it talks about two brick layers.
One says I'm laying bricks.
And the other one says I'm building a cathedral.
They're doing the exact same thing,
but there's perspectives.
The way they approach their work is completely different.
It makes all the difference.
So I love what he's saying there.
All I see is all the difference I see lies
in the attitude of mind.
And now we see Claude's takeaway from this entire section.
He says, I never forgot those talks.
And so a few pages later, we see Claude apply
the ideas of the railroad foreman.
And this is just great writing.
I came to love work as other men love golf.
I love it still.
Many a time I beg off from a bridge game, a dinner,
or a dance to spend the evening in my office.
I steal away from weekend parties at my country home
to enjoy a few hours at my typewriter.
So the love of work can be cultivated,
just like the love of play.
The terms are interchangeable.
What others call work I call play and vice versa.
We do best what we like best.
If that is chasing a polo ball,
one will probably excel in that.
If it means checkmating competitors
are getting a home run in something worthwhile,
he will excel in that.
So it means a great deal when a young man
can come to regard his life work as the most fascinating game
that he knows.
And it should be.
The applause of athletics dies in a moment.
The applause of success gives one cheer to the grave.
Okay, so those are lessons he's still going to play.
Way further in life than we are.
We're still in his other life.
I want to talk about the fact that he's going around
placing ads that other people are making.
He's just delivering them to other people's homes
when he was a young boy.
Really what is happening in the session
is taught him the value of being able to compare results
with inferior competition.
And so this is another lesson learned as a young boy
that he's going to apply to his career.
I would offer to place one bill, remember,
that were one flyer, one flyer in each home for $2.
It meant traveling some 35 miles.
Other boys offered to do the same job for $1.50.
But they would place several bills in a home
and would skip all the faraway homes.
I asked advertisers to compare the results.
I soon obtained a monopoly.
That was my first experience with traced results.
So he's going to use the word trace results
a million times on this book.
It's just saying that you shouldn't be doing anything
that you can't prove that it's effectiveness.
Okay, that's how you think about the term.
He's going to use it a bunch of different examples
and different domains.
It's taught me to stand for known and compared returns.
And I've urged them ever since
in no other way can real service reveal its advantage.
Doing anything blindly is folly.
Okay, so that's one of his main ideas.
You need to be able to trace what you're actually doing.
This is another idea he's going to use over and over again.
And it's really on the value of free samples.
There's going to be a distinction here.
You just don't give samples out willy-nilly.
That's not what he's recommending.
But when I read this part,
remember, I don't know the number of founders in front of me,
but it's the autobiography of Estée Lauder,
which in my opinion, way too many people sleep on.
That book, if you could bring Estée Lauder back
from the grave, put her in, you know, start her again.
I know she didn't start her career until she was 40.
But drop her today.
Anyway, like she's going to do the same thing.
She's going to be one of the best entrepreneurs that ever lived.
Her autobiography, it's short.
It's like you could read it in a weekend.
It's 200 pages, but it's large tags,
a bunch of pictures and everything else.
And it's just full of fun.
Like she understood human nature.
She was very gifted and she understood sales.
And she talks about that over and over again, doesn't it?
I mean, obviously she loved beauty.
But she'd be quality.
Anything she loved, she would be successful.
Reading that book.
It's just a bunch of timeless knowledge.
And I don't think many people read it.
Anyways, she talks about building her empire.
She calls it the sales technique of a century in her book.
It's what I'm trying to do to reference here.
And they talk about anybody who comes to the counter,
they buy something, and then she would give them
free example of some other gift.
It calls a gift with purchase or whatever the case is.
And then she realized she was, hey,
she realized it was so effective that she
stopped spending money on--
instead of spending money when she had a limited budget,
the money they set aside for advertising,
they changed that and actually just spent it
manufacturing more product.
And that was more product meant to give away.
And so we're going to see the power of demonstration
and actually letting your product speak for itself, which
is something Claude talks about over and over again.
And remember, he's writing these words over 120 years ago.
Still true today.
History doesn't repeat who miniature does.
Mother made a silver polish.
I molded it into a cake form and wrapped it in pretty paper.
Then I went from house to house to sell it.
I found that I sold about one woman in 10 by merely talking
about the polish at the door.
So OK, I'm at 10% success rate.
But when I could get into the pantry and demonstrate
the polish, I sold nearly all.
That taught me the rudiments of another lesson I
have never forgotten.
A good product is its own best salesman.
It is uphill work to sell goods and print
earn person without samples.
The hardest struggle of my life
has been to educate advertisers to the use of samples
or to trials of some kind.
They would not think of sending out a salesman without samples.
But they will spend fortunes on advertising
to urge people to buy without seeing or testing.
OK, moving on.
Let's go to another lesson that he talks about.
This is going to echo what is Ogreby
talking about over and over again.
Research, research, research.
Read more, study more, read your product.
Read books about your product.
Talks about spending three or four weeks
reading all of these engineering guides
to when you got the Rose Royce account.
And finding one line, after spending 100, 200 hours,
whatever it was, reading, you found one line.
And he used that as his headline.
And that winds up producing more sales.
And I think almost any other car for--
I forgot the increased sales by a lot.
I can't remember the exact degree.
But it was very valuable.
The point is the reading and the research is valuable.
So this is more about him on the value of research
because a lot of life is counterintuitive.
And yet we go through life thinking
every-- how we think is how everybody else thinks.
It's just not true.
So he says, this taught me another lesson.
We must never judge humanity by ourselves.
The things we want, the things we like,
may appeal to a small minority.
The losses occasioned in advertising
by venturing on personal preference
would easily pay the national debt.
We live in a democracy.
On every law, they're divided opinions.
Soon in every preference, every want.
So saying, no matter what, you put one thing up,
and people are going to have a million different opinions
about the same exact thing.
We don't-- people are like, oh, I see what I cringe at when
people say, oh, I call things how they are.
Or I say that it's like, no, you don't call things how
they are.
You don't describe things how they are.
You describe them as how you are.
And many of you will fail to ever learn a lesson.
We live in a democracy-- I just read the part.
Only the opposite.
The boneheaded will venture far on personal opinion.
We must submit all things in advertising
as in everything else to the court of public opinion.
This-- and why am I reading this?
Because he's saying, this is a main point.
Pay attention to this.
And I like that he doesn't beat around the bush.
This writing is very clear, and he tells you what to focus on.
This, you will see, is the main theme of this book.
I-- here's a little bit of a flex for you.
I own an ocean-going yacht.
But do you suppose I would venture across an ocean
without a chart or a compass?
So now he talks about the importance of studying human nature.
And he says, let me digress here to say that the road
to success lies through ordinary people.
They form the vast majority.
Demand who knows them and is one of them
stands vastly a better chance.
Some of the greatest successes I have ever known in advertising
were ignorant men.
So he's going to talk about the difference between somebody
being a practitioner and someone being, you know,
theorist or spending their--
formative years being educated and sometimes educated in learning the wrong things right.
So he says some of the most the greatest successes are quote unquote ignorant man. They
are now heads of agencies, two of them are now heads of advertising agencies. One of them
has made much money in advertising. A man can have the same man can hardly sign his name,
but he knew ordinary people and the ordinary people bought what he had to sell. One of them
wrote copy which would induce a farmer to mortgage his barn to respond, but his every sentence
had to be edited for grammar. And he's going to give us an example here, and he's going
to say, when you find these people, who was it? I think it was Peter Taylor says, like you
have to find undiscovered talent. When you find these people, you have to hire them. It
doesn't matter what their education was. He clearly demonstrated an understanding
of human nature that they have value. So as the time we were seeking all the time, we
were seeking an advertising man with the impulses of the majority. We never asked our education.
We never asked their literary qualifications. Those lacks are easily supplied, but let
a man prove to us that he understands human nature and we welcome him with open arms.
So he's a direct example of him finding somebody and then hiring that person. One day, I received
a letter from a man who would evidently address me at random. He said, there's great demand
for ready-made meat pies, and I make them. I have named them Mrs. Brown's meat pies because
people like home cooking. I have created a considerable demand, and I know there exists
a much larger demand. I want capital to expand it. Now here's Claude's reaction to this.
I saw in that man print primeval instincts. His meat pies did not attract me, but his
rare insight to human nature did. So I sent out a man to investigate. He found that the
writer was a night cook in a shabby restaurant, and he was making $8 per week. I brought him
to my office, and I offered him $25 per week to learn advertising. He came with me, and
he is now one of the leading advertising men of the country. He talks about two insights
there is one. He's in a position to know that people will eat meat pies because he's
in a restaurant, but the main insight there is that I have named them Mrs. That is the main insight. Claude mentions over and
over again. There's really no such thing as a corporation. It's just an abstraction. People
like people, and you're attracted to people that talk like people. No one goes out and reads
the writing of a mindless corporation. I think he calls it Solus. I want to say faceless.
No, no. He says Solus Corporation. His point, this idea is like there's just some dude
in a shabby restaurant making meat pies at night, but he calls it Mrs. Brown. They use
that same thing over and over again. Claude will develop personalities for businesses based
on real people, and usually it will be, even if the person doesn't work there, like maybe
it's the same model person you photographed, but you always, that is becomes the physical
representation of the company. He does this for women's clothing. What's the other thing?
He does it for, I can't remember at the moment. Hopefully I'll run into it, but he uses
examples. It's a guy. I do have a highlight on it. I know I do, so I'm sure I'll cover it.
It'll come to mind when I get to that part, but just remember that main point. Again,
that main insight, it's like people want to buy from people. Mrs. Brown's meat pies to
note to the customer. It's like, maybe your mother's home cooking or whatever the case
was. It's a very strong instinct in humans. I guess this is a point there. Now Claude just
has some general advice about career. You get to summarize this section by love what you
do or find another work. I believe every man should do so. No man succeeds in any line
where he finds himself in disagreement and where unhappiness results. I consider business
as a game, and I play it as a game. That is why I have been and still am so devoted
to it. Okay, so now when the early days of his career, he does not start out as an advertising
agent or a working in advertising agency rather. He works for private businesses and tries
to develop advertising internally. It takes, I want to say, 16 years. That's the number
that jumps out to me. 16 years before he finally accepts Albert Laskers being recruited
by Albert Lasker, which he talks about, like the Lasker's persuasion power was unbelievable.
So a lot of the lessons that he's going to apply once he's actually working in advertising
agency. He developed by working in a bunch of businesses. So one of them is he works for
this brand still around. Bissell Carpet. Bissell Carpet Sweeper Company is what it's named
then. I think it's just named Bissell now. I'm not mistaken. But this is a reason I bring
this to your attention is because this is where he's discovering a quirk in human nature.
It does not have a lot of money. There's places where you can rent like a place to live
and they give you food as well. And he's forced. He has so little money that he's forced to
accept like the package deal where you have to skip a meal or two. I want to say a meal
a day, something like that. And so he tries to appeal, but like, oh, I'm poor. Help me.
And he realizes that's not, that's not really convincing. That's not going to, some people
will be convinced by the argument, but the vast majority of humans won't be. And so this
is where he's discovering a quirk in human nature. I met Mr. Bissell. He's the president
of the Bissell Carpetsweeper Company. He was a genial man. And I saw on him a chance
to add a higher salary. One day, I waled him on his way to lunch. I pictured the difficulties
of a young man living on $4.50 and $4.50 per week. There was no need to exaggerate. There
on his way to lunch, I told him of the two meals weekly, I was obliged to miss. So he
skipped two meals a week, not a day. Above all, I pictured my dream of pie. He's saying,
I just really want to buy. I knew a restaurant which served pie at dinner, but the board was
$3.50 per week. My greatest ambition at that time was to get that pie. From him, I learned
another kink in human nature. Struggle and poverty did not appeal to him. He had known
them as well, and he considered them good for a fellow, but he loved pie and had never
been denied it. So he invited me home to eat pie. And this is important part. He gets
this pie, but then he's like, hey, do you want a job? And he arranged for a salary of $6
per week so I could have pie every day. Oh, so I need to back up too. I skipped over
so he's not yet advertising yet. He's being trained as like a gofer, like a bookkeeper.
And this is where he realizes, like, I'm on the wrong side of this transaction. And
the, I, you and I have talked about this many times. The way to summarize just good life
and advice in general is if you're working for a company, stay close to the money. People,
they start on sales, they start in retail, they start close to the customer transaction
on the front lines. And then they get promoted and they get further away from the money.
And then they go from being an asset to an expense. And when times are tough or when a
new CEO takes place or a new management, they start looking at this like, oh, okay. And
they wipe these departments out, stay close to the money. I began to read and this is
called realizing that 120 years before I did. I began to reason in this way. A bookkeeper
is an expense in every business expenses are kept down. I could never be worth more than
any other man who could do the work I did. The big salaries were paid to salesmen to
the ones who bought in order brought in orders or to the men in the factory who reduced the
cost. They showed profits and they could command a reasonable share of those profits. I saw
the difference between the profit earning and the expense side of a business. And I resolved
to graduate from the debit class. And this is why he could make $4 million in a year
as an employee because he's making the business that he works for and the customers of that
business way more money than that. He would never make that as a bookkeeper anything else.
So now we get to the point where he's learning, again, there's really no formal advertising
career here. So he's got to learn through a series of experiences. He winds up, this is
like a potential blueprint for him. He winds up competing with him. This guy named John
Powers. And he sees how much money. Remember, he's making $6 a week, I think at this point.
So just over what? $300 a year. And he realizes this guy named John Powers, who's really good
at advertising, is making $12,000 a year. He was an advertising writer for John Wanamaker.
And there he created new conception, new conception of advertising. He told the truth,
but he told it in a rugged and fascinating way. Wanamaker paid him $12,000 a year, which
in those days was considered a fabulous salary. He had become the model and idea of all
men who had advertising ambitions. So that's John Powers, he's talking about. And so in
some respects today, the principles for which John Powers stood are still among our advertising
fundamentals. So why is that this sentence so important? Right? So we learned from David
Ogreby. David Ogreby says, "Hey, one of my, I was at the cycle of Rosser Reeves. When
he's having lunch or dinner, whatever was, with his weekly meetings with Rosser Reeves,
Rosser Reeves is like, "Hey, I learned from Claude Hopkins. You should study him." Now
Claude Hopkins is saying, "I learned from John Powers." You see how no one owns ideas. Everybody
learns from somebody else. They steal, borrow, would copy whatever word you want to put on
it and then use those ideas in your career. This is so fundamentally powerful. A clothing
concern was on the verge of bankruptcy. So now he's talking about an advertising campaign
that Powers had a lot of success with that is very, very counterintuitive. And really he's
going to say, "Tell the truth." That's the main point here. They called in Powers and he immediately measured up the situation.
And this is what Power said. "There is only one way out. Tell the truth. Tell the people
that you're going bankrupt and that your only way to salvation lies through a large and
immediate sales." The clothing dealers argue that such an announcement would bring every
creditor to their doors. But Power
said, no matter, either tell the truth or I quit. Their next day add, their next
days add red. We are bankrupt. We owe 125,000 dollars more than we could pay.
This announcement will bring our creditors down to our next. But if you come and
buy tomorrow, we shall have the money to meet them. If not, we go to the wall.
These are the prices we are quoting to meet the situation. And this is the
result. And so they're saying, look at these prices. Just please buy from us.
Truth was then such a rarity in advertising that this announcement created a
sensation. People flocked by the thousands to buy and the store was saved. So
those are an example of powers being extremely successful. Now the carpet
company that Claude is working for hires powers. And then power, Claude is
reading the ads. He's like, this isn't going to work. I think I could do a
better job. So he says, I said, that cannot sell carpet sweepers. There's now
one word in the pamphlet, which will, which will lead people to buy. Let me try my
hand. In three days, I will hand you a book to compete with based on knowledge of
our problems. So this is just writing his first ads. And the way he approaches
the way he gets his opportunity, because it's a very, it's a low risk. So he
caps the downside, but leaves the upside potentially unlimited. He's
going to wind up selling like a quarter million of these things. It's really
remarkable. It's about to happen. So he's going to, he's going to attack this.
But he's like, okay, can we sell this by mail? Okay. The carpet sweeper
business was then in its infancy. Users review and sales are small. On the
strength of my pamphlet, I asked for permission to try to increase the demand.
Christmas was approaching. On my nights pacing the streets, I thought of the
idea of a sweeper as a Christmas present. It had never been offered as such. I
designed a display rack for exhibit. I drew up cards. So they say the queen of
Christmas presents was the headline. And I went to the manager and asked his
permission to, to solicit some, to solicit some sales by mail. I sent out some
five thousand letters. They brought me one thousand orders. That was the most
orders we had ever received by mail. That was the birth of a new idea which led me
to graduate from the expense account to the field of money earners. So that's
him talking about saying I'm getting I'm on the wrong side of transaction. I'm
going to stay closer to the money. Okay, so he gets his next idea because he has
he's interested in like he grew up in the woods in Michigan. So he'd like to
walk in the forest and everything. And he used to gather sample of woods and he
would sit like different kind of woods and trees and send around to people. And
so you can have this idea is like, okay, well, how can we get people interested
in things? And I just reread my highlights from James Dyson's autobiography, which
is a fantastic book if you haven't read yet. And he was talking about one of the
benefits he like purposely made his vacuum cleaner look different than anything
else. Because even if they don't buy it, they're going to stop like what is
happening? Seth Godin, the famous writer and marketer, it's like he references
this shorthand is like a purple cow. Like if you're driving down the road, you're
used to seeing, you know, black and white cows. They're sitting there eating, they're
saying next to each other, maybe eating some grass. But if one of them is purple,
you'd stop like, what the hell is happening here? So he uses his ideas like, okay,
I knew a lot about woods and what they look like, different finishes. And so he
convinces them. Like why don't we try to make our sweeper look different? And we say
for a limited time, I think it was limited time. Hey, we're gonna we're gonna put
out 12. You can you can pick a new sweeper and you can pick, you know, which
would we're gonna have 12 different models. And this is the the result of this.
This is what I mean about like why I caught I think was so so help bent on like
experimentation because you derived counterintuitive, unpredictable insights
from experimentation that you would never would otherwise. And no one would
think, okay, we put some wood some wood coating on a bunch of sweepers. We're
gonna sell quarter million of them. Like it just sounds ridiculous, but it actually
happened. And multiplied the use of carpet sweepers and it gave to bissel sweepers
the practical monopoly, which they maintained to this day. Other men will say, I
have no such opportunity. My line is not like that, meaning my product is not
like that. Of course, it isn't, but in all probability, it offers a thousand
advantages. No man is in any line that is harder to sell than carpet sweepers
were in those days. I care not what it is. The usual advertising was impossible. A
carpet sweeper with less 10 years. The profit was about a dollar. Never has anyone
found an ordinary way to advertise profitably on an article of that class.
Because what he's saying is that how can you advertise? You're making a dollar
for every decade per customer. No young man finds himself in any field with
smaller opportunity. So he's talking about the need for create. Looking at things
creatively, doing things differently, experimenting differently. Any man in a
bank, a lumber office, a tire concern or grocery has a far better opportunity
than I had. The only difference lies in his conceptions, meaning his ideas
are perspective, how you're approaching it. I felt that clerkship was an expense
and expenses would always be minimized. I was struggling to graduate into the
profit earning class where no such limit exists. So I just gave you the punchline
obviously. This book, it's like 200 pages. I highly, I love little small,
compact books that have a lot of ideas in them. I'm going to leave a link in the
show notes to the Kindle version because you buy this book and you get
scientific advertising as well. And it's probably like 10 bucks, 12 bucks. I
don't even know what I paid, but it's remarkable. I recommend reading it. It's
really interesting. Let me, I'm still in this, this section about about him
finally making the switch and doing so because he, he might be hitting on two
really good ideas to sell more, more carpet sweepers, right? And really what he's
about to say here is the leverage that a great idea can give you, right? After
that, I gave up my bookkeeping and devoted my time to selling. I sold more
carpet sweepers by my one cent letters than 14 salesmen on the road combined.
This is also what I like about this book is that he's, you know, he talks about
it's like, it's not, hey, I'm fantastic. I'm great. Look, you know, just, it's
not a really celebration of his life. It's just like, this is how I looked at
things and, you know, it could be content towards the end of my life that I did
things, but there are alternate paths to consider. And it's, this is where we
see he's, he's not sure which past is bet or excuse me, which path is best at
the time because he tried to get, he was recruited several times and he pulled him
away from where he wanted to be and he's just not sure about that. So let me, let me
read this. The point is that everybody's going to go through a lot of periods of
self-doubt are uncertainty in their life and then we just got to keep working
our way through it, right? Now our approach to tragic epoch in my life, I was
close to my limits in Grand Rapids. That's where he liked living. This offer gave
me wider recognition. Ambition surged within me. I became anxious to go higher. I
had built a new home in Grand Rapids. All the friends I knew were, were there as
well. I enjoyed prestige there. I knew that in a larger field, I would have to
sacrifice the things that I love most. I suppose I was right in my desires
according to general standards. Ambition is everywhere applauded. So he's like,
you know, people love ambitious people, but ambitious, maybe a decision you have
to make to, to further ambition is not the best decision for your life. This is
very confusing. It can be very confusing. But I
have often returned to Grand Rapids to envy my old associates. They continued
in a quiet sheltered life or quite, quiet sheltered field, excuse me. They met,
they met no large demands. Success and money came to them in moderation. But in my
turbulent life, as I've reviewed it, I have found no joys that they have missed.
Fame came to me, but I did not enjoy it. Money came, but I could never spend it.
My real inclination has always been toward the quiet paths. When my old friends
and I get together here, it is hard to decide who took the wiser course. And so the
more you read and learn about the life stories of people, I don't know if you
can, I don't know if uncertainties ever, anything you overcome. I think you just
learn to live with it. I mean, this guy's writing this towards the end of his
life. And he's like, in some degree, it's a celebration of his career. And you know,
that he is happy that he was able to master his craft and add to and he's
writing to hopefully to help us if we want to like derive any insights from his
work. But it's also not, you know, the uncertainties never resolved. I guess
is my point here. So let me tell you what's going on in his life for him to think
this way. So there's a company that has one of the largest advertising budgets in
America. And it's looking for a head of advertising. And Claude, he talked about
his ambition, Claude finds out 105 other people applied. And for some reason,
he just, he wants it more now because of that. He gets really competitive. He has
dozens of people send letters about his skills, a writer and advertiser to the
company. He starts, this guy's an extreme person. He starts writing a daily
newspaper article for free on the subject of advertising, just so the person in
charge of hiring sees it. So he winds up getting the job and regretting it. And
then it left myself as how wild is this last sentence. And I'll tell you when I
get to the last sentence. So it says the next morning in gray, I didn't, I wasn't
clear there. He has to leave Grand Rapids where he doesn't want to leave. And I
think it's just in Chicago. It's a stock yard, which is like a slaughterhouse. The
next morning in Grand Rapids, I went to my home and saw the family on the porch.
There were shade trees in front and many flowers in yard. He's obsessed with
nature, by the way. I contrasted that setting with the stockyards where the
outlook covered only dirty pens filled with cattle and hogs. The weight of the
office led to a half mile of mud. Then I regretted my action. The price seemed
too great to pay. Had I not given my word, I would have turned back that morning to
quiet insignificance. And this is a wild last sentence. And now, after looking
back 30 years, I think I would turn back this morning. Now this is more, it's
another him talking about the importance of demoing again. He says over and over again.
So he says to many, advertising is placing some dignified phrases in print. But
commonplace dignity doesn't get far. Study salesmen, canvassers.
and fakers. He talks about learning from people that like, you know, street performers.
That's what it means by fakers. Fakers. Study salesman,
canvassers, and fakers. If you want to know how to sell goods,
this is his main point here. No argument in the world can ever compare with one dramatic
demonstration. And I like that he talks about demos as a form of service. So if you're talking
about advertising, trying to convince people to buy what you want, he's like, don't start saying,
buy my goods. That's not compelling to anybody. You start with service. All good salesmanship,
imprint, or in person is based on some appealing service. Good salesman study to make their appeals
inviting. One says, send me the money, and I will return it if the article is not satisfactory.
Another says, send no money. Let me send the article for trial, then remit or return it just as you
desire. The second one being a lot better. I buy many books by mail, and nearly every issue
of certain magazines I see descriptions of books of books I may want. The ads do not say send the money.
If they did, my purchases would be few. My checkbook is at the office. By the next day in all
probability, the book would be forgotten. But they offer to send me the book to examine. I simply
mail the coupon. I tear it out, put it into my pocket, and mail it the next morning. Do you see
what he's talking about there? Or he's saying, okay, one saying, send me money. And the other one's
saying, I'll send you something. One is asking for something. One is serving you. He's saying,
hey, this book is so good. Let me go ahead and send it to you. And if you like it, send me to check
for it. If you don't, just send it back. Start with service is the way to summarize that section.
Another main insight of his treat every ad, everything you're doing, everything you're writing,
as if the person is standing in front of you. This is hilarious. The noise, I guess I'll tell you
the noise left myself first because it helps to understand what about to read you. You wouldn't
hand her a catalog of general products if that person was asking you about sewing machines.
Yet the process, the business process of this particular company does that exact same thing.
So says he's doing the advertising for Montgomery Ward. I says many new, many new merchandising plans
were inaugurated. My everlasting argument was against dealing with people in the mask. Remember,
in the mask, not mask, in the mask, treat everyone as if there's one person an individual standing
in front of you. It's a very powerful idea. For instance, a woman wrote in about a sewing machine.
She had that and nothing else on her mind. The general plan then was to send a catalog.
That's what the company was doing before. He's like, what are you doing? Treating all inquiries
as if they were alike, I urge that every inquire should be treated like a prospect who came into
the store. We had a special catalog and sewing machines showing every style and price.
We sent every inquire the names of all of all in her vicinity who had bought our sewing machines.
We asked her to see the machines and to talk with their owners. He's talking about the approach he
did as opposed to just like, you wrote me in about sewing machines here. I'll send you a catalog. It has
sewing machines in it, but it's not dedicated to that. As opposed to I'm going to send you a catalog
that only has sewing machines showing every style, every price. Then we show you a list of my
customers. There are contact information. If you want to talk to them about the sewing machine,
which one do you think is going to respond to the result in the most amount of sales? A lot of
what cloud does is just thinking. It's just like, is this common sense? Like, are we? That's the thing,
large problem with big companies. It's like they come up, obsessed with process instead of
actually solving problems. There I learned another valuable principle in advertising. In a wide
reaching campaign, we are too apt to regard to people in the mass. We try to broadcast our seed
in the hope that some part will take root. That is too wasteful to bring a profit. We must get down
to individuals. We must treat people in advertising as we treat them in person. Center on their desires.
Consider the person who stands before you with a certain express with certain express desires.
However, big your business, get down to the units for those units are all that make size.
Okay. So, now he's going to talk about the insights he derived from writing ads for a brewery.
And the summary of this section is like, what is ordinary to you about your product or your work?
It's unknown to the customer. And if they knew, it would marvel them. Use it. So he's ghost and
takes a tour of the brewery. And he just cannot believe the process they go through to make the beer.
And he's like, why aren't you telling the story? Like, because everybody does this.
But no, but the customer doesn't know that. And what's again, what you know about your product
is your use. You come used to it. It will marvel your customer. So he says, then I went through
the brewery. I saw a plate glass, plate glass rooms where beer was dripping over pipes.
And I asked the reason for that. They told me those rooms were filled with filtered air,
so the beer could be cooled and purity. I saw great filters filled with white wood pulp.
They explained how that filtered the beer. They showed how they cleaned every pump and pipe
twice daily to avoid contamination. How every bottle was cleaned four times by machinery.
They showed me a well where they went four thousand feet deep for pure water.
They showed me that the vats were where beer was aged for six months before I went out to the
user. They took me to the laboratory and showed me that their original, showed me their original
mother yeast cell that had been developed by 1200 experiments to bring out the utmost in flavor.
All of the yeast used in making their beer was developed from that original shell.
So I came back to the office amazed. I said, "Why don't you tell people these things? Why do you
merely try to cry louder and others that your beer is pure? Why don't you teach the reasons?
Why?" they said. The process we use are just the same as others use. No one can make good beer
without it. But I replied, others have never told the story. It amazes anyone who goes to your
brewery. It will startle everyone in print. So I pictured in print those plate glass rooms and
every other form of purity. I told a story common to all good brewers, but a story which had never
been told. I gave purity a meaning because he's talking about everybody at the thing. He's like,
"We all copy each other." So he talks about, "You'll see ads." If you say the lowest price,
then your competitors will say the lowest price. Everybody starts coming and everybody's
ads are the same and they're not effective. So everybody at this point is advertising beer saying
it's the pure, purest beer. That's not helpful if there's seven other people or 15 other beers
are making the same claim. Find a way to differentiate yourself and you have to differentiate yourself
because you're describing a process that you use to make the product that would marvel people
that don't understand it or are unaware of it rather. So it says, "I told a story common to all
good brewers, but a story which had never been told." I gave purity a meaning. The brand, he's
working for a jump from fifth place to neck and neck with first place in a few months. That campaign
remains to this day one of my greatest accomplishments, but it also gave me the basis for many other
campaigns. Again and again and again, I have told simple facts, common to all makers in the line,
too common to be told. But they have given the article first, given the product, first allied with
them an exclusive and lasting prestige. That situation occurs in many, many lines. So many,
many businesses are what he's saying there. The maker is too close to his product. He sees it in his,
in his, he sees in his methods only the ordinary. He does not realize that the world at large might
marvel at those methods and that facts and that facts which seem commonplace to him might give him
vast distinction. And this is a summary of the entire section. Tell the pain, tell the pains you
take to excel. So I just want, very, it can say sentence I think is good advice, serve better than
others, offer more than others and you are pretty sure to win. More on service. There are other ways I
know to win in selling and in advertising, but they are slow and uncertain. Ask a person to take a
chance on you and you have a fight, offer to take a chance on him and the way is easy.
Okay, so he has all these experiences working for companies and then this is where he's burnt out.
He wants to give up and take a break for a little bit and he winds up. This is where he yields
to being recruited by Albert Lasker. And I think the way Albert Lasker recruits him is very fascinating.
Gives an insight. I have less Lasker's biography too. I'll probably cover that in the future at
some point. I haven't read it yet to see if it's any good, but this guy seems very, very unique.
So he goes and meet Mr. Lasker. He thinks at the beginning he's like, I'm just going to, I'm not,
I don't, I'm not going to accept a job. I'm just going to hear him out, but I'm not going to accept it.
Says Mr. Lasker handed me a contract from the Van Camp packing company for $400,000. It was
based on the condition that copy, that copy be submitted satisfactory to Mr. Van Camp. Mr. Lasker said,
I searched the country for copy. This is copy I got in New York. This is in Philadelphia.
I spent thousands of dollars to get the best copy obtainable. You see the results. Neither you or
I would submit it. Now I asked you to help me. Give me three ads, which will start this campaign.
And your wife may go down Michigan Avenue to select any car on the street and have it charged to me.
So it's a very unique selling proposition. Aubrey Lasker is a very unique individual.
OgoVee, David OgoVee in OgoVee and advertising says that Aubrey Lasker made more money than
anybody else in the entire history of advertising business. He also spent a ton too. He's a wild,
wild person. One's of doing this, you know, for multiple decades and one day just this, I'm done.
He's selling his firm to three people that work firm for like a token payment of $100,000
and then just walking away never dealing with advertising again. He also didn't pay attention to his
competitors. I do think I'm going to wind up covering his biography because he just has a very
unique approach to his work. That was a wildly successful. So it's probably a lot we can learn from him.
But this thing is like, okay, yeah, you don't want to do ads. Pick me an ad and then your wife goes down
she could buy any car she wants on me.
Okay, so it's now Claude's talking
about the unusual persuasive ability of Albert Lasker.
So far as I know, no ordinary human being
has ever resisted Albert Lasker.
He has commanded what he would in this world.
Presidents have made them their power.
Presidents have made him their power.
Nothing he desired has ever been forbidden him.
What a crazy sentence.
Let me read that again.
So I yielded, as all do, to his persuasiveness.
And so that starts his career.
He's going to wind up working for Albert,
getting paid a ton of money.
I think for 16, 17 years, something like that.
And then he's going to quit and go into business on his own
and he'll talk about the last chapter.
I think the last chapter's book might be like
his greatest mistakes.
Actually, well, I don't know just to tell you
what it is by looking at it.
No, the next last chapter is my great mistake.
And that's just waiting too long to do
what he actually wanted to do.
All right, so let's go back to some ideas
that he derives from this point of his career.
The greatest two faults in advertising,
lie in boasts and in selfishness.
That's another point to consider.
Are you anything for your own advantage
and people will resist you to the limit?
But seem unselfishly to consider your customer's desires
and they will naturally flock to you.
The greatest two faults lie in advertising.
The greatest two faults in advertising lie in boasts
and in selfishness.
So go back to that article or the ad about book.
Hey, semi-money, I'll send you a book or how about,
hey, I'm sending you the book if you'd like a semi-money.
Same desire, the book seller has the same desire.
One approach works and one doesn't.
'Cause one is not just asking for things
that just advantage you.
It's very interesting.
People will listen if you talk service to them.
They will turn their backs and always
when you see to impress an advantage for yourself.
This is important.
So he also says that companies do this as well.
And he's just applying that principle to advertising tires.
He gets a good year account at the time.
They're spending, there was really no tire advertising
to speak of and this is a way to apply that principle
or in other ways is how you can get 30,000 customers
in just a few months.
Another problem we had to solve was to get dealers
to carry tire stocks.
Okay, so I'm a good year of the manufacturer.
I have dealers that sell it to that and customer,
but they're only buying for me as the customer needs it.
But I want more money upfront.
But I can't say, hey, why don't you guys buy more stock
for me because then I'm just saying,
I'm appealing to my advantage.
That's not helping you.
I'm not serving you.
So he flips it.
This guy's for congenious.
So it says, we wanted to solve a way to get dealers
to carry tire stocks.
Few of them did so in those days.
They bought from good year branches as they sold.
We prepared a large newspaper campaign.
We prepared a large newspaper campaign and offered
to name in each ad all the dealers who stocked
the minimum requirement or who stocked.
The minimum requirement was $250 stock.
So if you buy, if you will keep at your location,
the minimum of $250 worth of tires from us,
as we advertise our tire, we will also advertise
your name as where you can get the tire, right?
So I want you to buy a stock for me.
You say that? No one's buying stock from you.
If you're saying, hey, if you buy stock from me,
I will also advertise you in this
national newspaper campaign I'm doing.
They'll buy stock from you.
The minimum requirement was $2.5, you read that.
In a few months, we induce some 30,000 dealers
to stock good year tires on that basis.
And the campaign did much to change
the whole complexion of the tire business.
This naming of dealers and local advertising
is an almost irresistible inducement to stock.
Few plans are more effective.
No dealer likes to see his rivals named
in a big campaign and his own name omitted.
The more who join in the plan, the easier it is to get others.
I have often secured on new products,
almost universal distribution this way.
More random advice from him talking about you.
You should really stay inside your circle of competence
if you want to think about it.
And that is terms, it is curious how we all desire
to excel in something outside of our province.
That leads many men astray.
Men make money in one business
and then lose it in many others.
They seem to feel that one success makes them
super businessman as well.
This, I don't know why, when I read that part,
it reminded me of the quote from Warren Buffett
in last week's book, where Olga being a mother,
they're talking about, hey, we're gonna go out,
it was very common this time, we're gonna go about,
even against Olga, these wishes going on
and acquiring other advertising agencies.
And Warren's like, instead of applying other agencies,
why don't you just buy the best agency?
And they're like, what?
And he's like, your own.
Buy more of your stock.
If you're the best at advertising agency in the world,
buy more of that.
And the lesson there is a lot of these people
went out and bought other advertising agencies
and wanted to losing money on that.
So going back to his desire free trials,
estate lawters the same way, give free trials
but only to those who ask of it, right?
Don't just send your product everywhere,
it diminishes the quality.
I have never found that it paid to either,
to give either a sample or a full size package
to people who did not request it.
We must arouse interest in our product
before it has valued anybody.
I consider promiscuous sampling a very bad plan indeed.
Products handed out without asking
are thrown on the doorstep lose respect.
It is different when you force people to make an effort.
He's already mentioned a dozen variations
of the same idea.
So obviously he's telling us it's exceptionally important.
You cannot go into a well occupied field
on the simple appeal by my brand.
That is a selfish appeal.
It's repugnant to all.
One must offer exceptional service
to induce people to change from favorite brands to yours.
The usual advertiser does not offer that exceptional service.
That's why he keeps talking over and over again
in the book like all the money wasted at advertising
can pay the national debt.
Oh, so he's, this is, okay,
now I reached the part I was mentioning earlier about.
My note is personalities, appeal,
soul, as corporations do not.
He's doing them.
He's re ramping a brand of breakfast cereal.
And so he establishes an actual person to act as a brand.
So he says, "I establish a personality.
"Professor A. P. Anderson.
"I've always done that whenever possible.
"Personalities appeal.
"Soulless corporations do not make a man famous
"and you make his creation famous.
"And all of us love to study men
"and their accomplishments."
This is more about him, it's essentially working remotely
a long time ago.
He says, "I earned commissions as high as $185,000
"in a year.
"That's equivalent to about $4 million a year now.
"All earned at a typewriter which I operated myself
"without a clerk or secretary
"and much of it earned in the woods.
"That's where he's living."
So think about that.
I made $4 million a year working at home
by myself at a typewriter which I operated
without a secretary and most of it in the woods and Michigan.
But he also spent a large amount of time
teaching, teaching, teaching, serving, serving, serving.
I was doing more than just serving myself.
I was doing my best to teach other copy men in the agency.
I held many meetings with them
to discuss the principles of copy.
For that I received no pay.
Then I wrote numerous books to set down
the print agency principles.
Because of those services, Mr. Lasker
finally made me president of Lord and Thomas.
So he didn't say make me president first
and then I'll do this.
He's saying, "I'm just gonna teach everybody around me.
"I'm gonna serve those, try to help them better at their job."
And as a result of that service, I'll get what I deserve.
So then I left myself on this next section.
I'm trying to read it before I read it to you.
Oh, okay, this is very good, read it twice.
All right, I'm not gonna read it twice
but you'll know how I feel about it.
How have I been able to win from this situation
so many great successes?
Simply because I made so many mistakes in a small way
and learned something from each.
I made no mistake twice.
Every once in a while I developed
some great advertising principle that endured.
That method cost me beginning as I did
in the infancy of advertising an enormous amount of time.
More time than other men are apt to devote to this primitive experience.
Much more time, much more sacrifice
than I would want a son of mine to devote.
That is the purpose of this autobiography
to help other people start where I ended.
Going back to this idea, treating ads,
treating customers, personalizing them.
Taking like an actual ad, I think when ad is a sales person
like make it in human form.
Just like if somebody's inquiring something
like the lady that was interested about sewing machines,
like the way you responded to her mail
is not that where you were just trying to turn in person.
To apply scientific advertising,
one must recognize that ads are salesmen.
One must compare them one by one on a salesman basis
and hold them responsible for cost and result.
To advertise blindly, teaches one nothing
and it usually leads to the rocks.
Regardless of principles, we must always experiment.
And to know that myself as the world still has secrets to give up,
we do not know everything about the complex world that we live in.
That's why you experiment because you're going to derive insights
and knowledge that you can't otherwise.
You can't just sit there and think up in your mind.
It's too unpredictable.
The world still has secrets to give up.
More on this idea of thinking about advertising as a service.
Don't talk about yourself. Talk about what service your product will give the customer.
So it says, I've seen many ad killed by a single unfortunate phrase.
Usually a selfish phrase, indicating ulterior desires, which repel.
Frazes like insist on what's that word?
Oh, insist on this brand.
Avoid imitations. Look out for substitution.
Such appeals have no good effect.
And they indicate a motive with which buyers cannot sympathize.
Forget yourself entirely.
Have in your mind a typical prospect interested enough to read about your product.
Keep that prospect before you.
Seek and everyone.
word to increase your good impression. Say only what you think a good salesman should
say if that prospect stood before him. See, he's hitting the same idea in different contexts
over and over again. Then, if you could sell it in person, you can sell it in print. Do
not boast. Not about your plant or your output. Not about anything more interesting to you
than to your prospect. Boasting is repulsive. Random, great. Quote here, "Most success comes
through efficiency. Most failures are due to waste." Oh, this is very interesting. "The
best school I know is canvassing." So, going door to door, right? "The best school I know
is canvassing, going from home to home. Many great adwriters spend half their time in that.
They learn by personal context what wins and what repulses. Then they apply their findings
in appeals, then they apply their findings to appeals in print." So, people are like,
"Oh, no one's going to do that nowadays. It hit me when I read this. Some of the most
successful apps, modern day apps, did this. You go back and read that book. I think it's
how to turn down a billion dollars, something like that." Evan Spiegel, the founder of Snapchat,
the very early days of Snapchat, he would go out and hand flyers in person at the mall
and ask people to download Snapchat. He was doing this by hand at the very beginning.
It sounds like fake, right? Unreal. There's this quote that Paul Graham uses, which is
hilarious. It calls it "The Collison Install." So, the very days of Stripe, the Collison
Brothers, would be describing to other people, like other founders, what Stripe could do
for their business. Then people would never really say, "Oh, wow, that sounds like something
interesting." Instead of sending an email with a link or saying, "Hey, go to my website."
They're like, "Oh, it sounds interesting. Give me your laptop." They would literally
install Stripe on the laptop. They wouldn't let that prospect, that temporary interest,
be fleeting. "Okay, I'll do it for you." So, again, this whole idea is that you can drive
insights in person. You're not going to do that later on as your business is more stable
at the very beginning. You have to know why people are true, like what service you're trying
to give to people and how they feel about that. I know that it was very, very interesting.
Okay, so just a few more things here. I want to talk about its greatest mistake, because
that's interesting. Really, his greatest mistake was not taking a chance on himself. So,
now he's talking about something that happened in his earlier life. Mr. Bissle, president
of the company called me into his office. He said, "I have some advice to give you. You
have many of the qualifications which make for success, including the selling instinct.
You are too good a man to work for me. You should start out for yourself as I did. Are
you should start out for yourself as I did?" He told me something of his history, how he
had refused every salary offer, every safe anchorage, and struggled alone. And how as a result
he had finally arrived on the road to fortune. He ended by saying, "I am selfish enough
to want you to stay here. If you do, your salary will be much increased next year. But
I am fair enough to advise you not to stay. Don't let someone else glean the chief profits
from your hard work and your talent. My Scottish conservatism led me to stay. It was my
great mistake. Soon after that, I married and any venture of my own became increasingly
difficult. Thus, I tied myself to a lifetime of service as an employee. I watched some of
my co-workers start out for themselves largely on lines that I had taught them. I feel
now as then, as I did then, that I was fully as well equipped as they were, safe for courage.
So I was a talented at them, but I wasn't his courageous at them. I always envy their
independence, which I spent 35 years to attain. So he finally does make the job. He says,
"You know, he didn't waste 35 years because he's learning too, but if you do it all over
again, you would have jumped." And part of it was his wife pushing him to have that desire.
Sure, it's very comfortable. I can stay at home. I can do what I'm really good at, and
I'm still making a lot of money. But he wants ownership. So he says, "An ambitious wife
was the one who woke me from that lethargy. She desires for which money counted more than
fame. She pointed out how those who employed me always gained the advantage in a monetary
way. Finally, I considered her viewpoint. And after many years of working for others,
I started to work for myself. I've already made more by sharing the profits of my creations
than I ever made by working on commission. One of my first ventures was in a toothpaste.
I bought a share in that for which I paid $13,000. It paid me some $200,000 in dividends,
and then I sold a stock for $500,000. So that's $700,000, right? Based on an investment
he'd made for a company he's doing advertising for, and this is $700,000 in 1920 money."
So now he's got some insights on money and happiness, which I always find interesting.
I long lived in utter poverty where hunger and I were pals. When I entered business,
I had to miss two meals a week to pay for my laundry bills. I also have lived in luxury,
spending as high as $140,000 a year. It has made little difference to me. I was as happy
in one condition as the other. I do not think we can go back to humble conditions without
being in pain, but I'm sure that men can be as happy as one another, can be as happy
on one plateau as another. The happiest man I know is a neighbor of mine who never made
more than $125 per month. Out of that, he saved enough to build six small houses which he rents.
Then he retired on that income. He spent his summer on the lake, working in his garden,
and his winters in Florida. I often go down to his cottage for a lesson in contentment.
Until the income tax was established, I kept no record of my earnings. Their volume meant
nothing to me. Their ups and downs did not affect me in the least. This is all recited
to indicate that my incentive for work was not money. Nor was it fame or position. I
care nothing for either out here in the woods among simple people where I have built my
home. All things are handicap, which in any way seemed to place me above my fellows. Here
in the country, we all meet on equality. I have worked for the fun of working, and because
work became a habit with me. Then later in business, because I realized that somebody had
to do a deal of hard work to get advertising out of its swaddling clothes. He's saying,
like, I'm doing work for my clients and the firm, but I'm also trying to grow the industry
as a whole. This is where he talks about what he gained from this. What have I gained?
This is just really, really good writing. This idea that the principles, the principles
he's learning, and during his Swiss Alps, this is fantastic. What have I gained by these
many years of exceptional application? I have gained what others gained by medical research,
by spending their lives in the laboratory. My life work has been research in advertising.
Now I have the privilege of setting down my findings for the men who follow me. I have
the hope that the record will save to many of the mistakes of the pioneers and the years
that I spent to correct them. I have gained what Thomas Edison had gained by his 20 hour
days, the satisfaction knowing that I've discovered some enduring principles. Many argue
that advertising is changing. That the times call for something new. Certainly the temple
of life in America is changing. Fads, fancies, and desires change. Certain styles in advertising
are changing. It is and always has been necessary to give every campaign a different keynote.
Immutators never succeed, but human nature does not change. The principles set down in
this book are as enduring as the Alps. Now we reached the part where I referenced earlier
about he's got some interesting insights living where he grew up, and I'll close on this
many hard years went by before I saw this boyhood home again. Then the homing instinct brought
me back. I bought a bluff of virgin forest, which I've always loved as a boy, and I named
it Pinecrest. There I built my home, which for 17 years I've enlarged and developed
into a paradise. Here I do what I love to do in beautiful surroundings. Here a mile
apart are the contrasts to show what I've gained by my efforts. Here remains some who
never dared to show me what might have been. Here is my motherland, here my tabernacle,
here my home. I'm sure that no man has gained more from life than I have, more of true happiness
and content. I traced that to the love of simple things, of common people, which made
my success in advertising. Here at our weekend parties I meet many successful men in the
most intimate way. I envy none of them. The happiest are those who live closest to nature,
an essential to advertising success. So I conclude that this vocation, depending as it
does on love and knowledge of the masses, offered many more rewards beyond money. And
that is where I'll leave it. If you want to full story, I highly recommend reading the
book. If you buy the book using the link to the show notes, you'll be supporting the
podcast at the same time. A lot of new listeners are discovering this podcast from misfits
buying gift subscriptions for friends, family or co-workers. If you want to do that, I'll
leave a handy link below. It feels good to do something nice for someone else, and it
helps the podcast at the same time. That is a 170. Yep, 170 books down 1,000 to go. And
I'll talk to you again soon.
Podcast Summary
Key Points:
Claude Hopkins wrote his autobiography not as a personal memoir but as a practical guide to help others avoid the same mistakes he encountered through years of hands-on experience.
He emphasizes that success in advertising comes not from talent alone, but from relentless work ethic, small-scale testing, and careful measurement of results.
Growing up poor and working in humble conditions taught him to understand ordinary people’s values, instincts, and financial struggles—key insights for effective advertising.
He rejects formal education and theory, arguing that real experience, especially from working in the field and observing real-world behavior, is far more valuable than classroom learning.
Hopkins believes that the difference between success and failure lies in mindset—viewing work as a game, not a burden—and in the ability to serve customers before asking for money.
A central principle is the need for traceable results
He champions free samples and product demonstrations as powerful tools that allow potential customers to experience value firsthand, making sales more believable.
His career demonstrates that breakthroughs often come from creative experimentation, not conventional thinking—especially when addressing deeply unprofitable or overlooked products.
Summary:
Claude Hopkins’ autobiography is not a celebration of personal achievement, but a practical manual for aspiring advertisers, rooted in decades of hands-on experience. He stresses that true success comes from relentless work, not innate talent, and that his methods—such as small-scale testing, direct customer observation, and rigorous result tracking—can be replicated by others. Growing up in poverty and working door-to-door taught him to understand common people’s values, struggles, and desires, making his advertising deeply relatable.
He dismisses formal education in advertising as impractical, favoring real-world experience over theory. A core lesson is the power of service over sales: instead of demanding payment, offering free trials or samples builds trust and drives action. Hopkins champions experimentation, showing how creative ideas—like making carpet sweepers look different—can create unexpected demand.
His career illustrates that breakthroughs come from seeing problems differently, not from following standard practices. Despite achieving immense success, he remains humble, acknowledging that his path was one of sacrifice and uncertainty. He reflects on the emotional cost of ambition, noting that while he attained fame and wealth, he often missed the quiet joys of a simple life.
Ultimately, his work underscores that advertising success hinges not on flashy techniques, but on empathy, observation, and a relentless commitment to understanding human behavior. The book remains a timeless resource because its principles—experiential learning, customer insight, and service-based selling—are still foundational in modern marketing.
FAQs
He wrote it to share valuable lessons and experiences to help others avoid the same mistakes, rather than to gain personal recognition or fame.
He emphasized that success in advertising comes from exceptional hours and discipline, not just talent, and that he learned to work diligently from a young age.
He grew up poor and lived among ordinary people, which gave him deep insight into their wants, struggles, and behaviors, forming the foundation of his advertising approach.
He insisted on tracing results and proving effectiveness through small-scale tests, believing that blind advertising efforts were foolish and ineffective.
He believed a good product is its own best salesman and stressed that demonstrations or trials are far more effective than relying on advertising alone to persuade customers.
He believed deep research was essential, stating that advertising success comes from understanding customer needs, not from personal preferences or assumptions.
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