Speaker 1This book is not written as a personal history but as a business story. I've 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 groping which I did. Any man who by a lifetime of excessive application learns more about anything than others owes a statement to his successors. The results of research should be recorded. Every pioneer should blaze his trail. That is all that I've tried to do. My only claim 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 learned more from that experience than those who had a lesser chance. I want that experience to help others avoid the same difficult climb. I set down these findings solely for that purpose of aiding others to start far up the heights that I scaled. Had someone set down a record like this when I began, I would have blessed him for it. So that is Claude Hopkins writing the preface of his autobiography which is called My Life in Advertising. When you buy this book, it actually comes with a second book that he wrote, a book that he wrote maybe four decades before he wrote his autobiography which is called Scientific Advertising. So I actually, I reread these books, I read both these books for the first time, I don't know, probably like five years ago and I found them because one of my personal heroes is this guy named, David Ogilvy and David Ogilvy said essentially like he built the foundation for his giant advertising agency that he founded just on the work alone of Claude Hopkins and I originally set out to write. So here's a crazy story for you. This will explain everything that I want to talk to you about today. So there is a book written by Claude Hopkins which is called Scientific Advertising, okay? It is sold like 8 million, 10 million copies. It's probably the most important book ever written on advertising if you factor in who read the book and then what it influenced. The book was so valuable that when Claude first wrote it, he showed it to the founder of the firm that he is working for, this guy named Albert Lasker. Now this is really important to follow because Albert Lasker is the person that made the most money in advertising ever. Albert Lasker read the book, told Claude Hopkins, absolutely not, you are not publishing this book, this is giving away all of our secrets, you have to wait until I'm done making all this money. Albert Lasker said, Albert Lasker put the book into a safe for 20 years. When Albert Lasker was done, quit his advertising agency, I think he wound up giving it to some of his employees and left, then Claude Hopkins was allowed to publish the book called Scientific Advertising, which is then over the last, you know, 100 years, because I think the book came out like 1920, maybe 1930, something like that. It sold, you know, almost 10 million copies, okay? So then this week, I was like, oh, I've been wanting to focus on headlines and essentially, like, how do you... distill down the most important idea into, you know, Maxim, which, you know, I'm obsessed with. And then how do I apply that to headlines? Because for my other show, the new show I started last year, where I'm actually, you know, having conversations with some of the greatest living founders, a lot of the, there's like so much, so much of the value in the conversations is down into these, like, small clips of three, four, six minutes. And personally, I was reading Scientific Advertising to get better at writing a way to distill a main message from, like, a three-minute clip, into, like, a one sentence that would essentially act as a headline for a clip, right? And so I was like, oh, I'm going to read this whole book. I finished reading Scientific Advertising. I'm like, god damn, this is good. And then it made me go back and start... I didn't, I wasn't planning on doing this episode the way I'm doing it right now. And then I go back and reread his autobiography, which I wasn't planning to talk to you about today. I was just going to talk to you about Scientific Advertising. I was like, damn it, there's too much good stuff in here. So then what I did is went back and compiled all my notes and all my highlights. into this one book, which I just transferred. I spent, you know, the last, I don't know, like 10 hours or something. It took a long time to do this. Of all my notes and highlights for both books into the book that I'm holding into my hand. So that's what I'm going to go through with you today. Not really, I skipped over large parts of his personal life and his life story. I just want to tell you the fact that this guy probably spent more time. He's arguably the greatest copywriter in history. And he spent more time doing that than anybody else. And he, there's just these principles and these handouts and these ideas that he's going to repeat over and over again. And I think it really, really will help you better sell, better market, better advertise whatever product it is that you're building. So let's just jump right into this. He says, I've supported myself since the age of nine. Uh, he started working 16 hours a day when he was still in what we'd call junior high. Okay. And then the reason that's important is because he also applied that when he starts into the advertising business, I did the same in business. I had no working hours when I ceased before midnight. That was a holiday for me. I often left. My office two o'clock in the morning Sundays were my best working days because there was no interruptions for 16 years after entering business. I rarely had an evening or Sunday, not occupied by work. I am not advising others to follow my example, but the man who works twice as long as his fellows is bound to go twice as far, especially in advertising. There is some difference in brains of course, but it is not so important as the difference in industry. The man who does two or three times the work of others learns two or three times as much, he makes more mistakes and more. Successes and he learns from both. If I have gone higher than others in advertising or done more, the fact is not due to exceptional ability, but to exceptional hours, so I'm going to interrupt my own self here because what I'm holding in my hand is, you know, 300 and maybe 320 pages of the most important lessons from working 16 hours a day for five decades. Okay. So he says, in fact, if I've gone any higher than anywhere else, it's not because I had a bigger brain. It's. Just do it's not exceptional ability. It's just because I, I, I devoted exceptional hours to this trade. It says, uh, it means that a man, and he's talking about himself. It means that a man has sacrificed all else in life to excel in this one profession. So I got to this part, you know, I probably read that highlight. I don't know, maybe half a dozen times in my life. The thing that jumped out to me is that this, this one of Charlie Munger's favorite founders, this guy named Les Schwab and Les essentially did the same thing that Claude Hopkins did in advertising, Les did. And he said, I'm going to do this. I'm going to do this. I'm going to do this. I'm going to do this. And he said, I'm going to do this. And he said, I'm going to do this. And he said, I'm going to do this. And he said, I'm going to do this. And he said, I'm going to do this. And he said, I'm going to do this. And he said, I'm going to do this. And he said, I'm going to do this. And he said, I'm going to do this. And he said, I'm going to do this. And he said, I'm going to do this. And he said, I'm going to do this. And he said, I'm going to do this. And he said, I'm going to do this. And he said, I'm going to do this. And he said, I'm going to do this. And he said, I'm going to do this. And he said, I'm going to do this. And he said, I'm going to do this. 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And he said, I'm going to do this. And he said, I'm going to do this. And he said, I'm going to do this. And he said, I'm going to do this. And he said, I'm going to do this. And he said, I'm going to do this. And he said, I'm going to do this. And he said, I'm going to do this. And he said, I'm going to do this. And he said, I'm going to do this. And he said, I'm going to do this. And he said, I'm going to do this. And he said, I'm going to do this. And he said, I'm going to do this. And he said, I'm going to do this. And he said, I'm going to do this. And he said, I'm going to do this. And he said, I'm going to do this. I call play and vice versa. We do best what we like best. how funny is this, okay? So this guy is named Claude, dedicated his life to learning advertising. Last week, you and I talked about another Claude, Claude Shannon, dedicated his life, obviously, one thing he's known for is creating information theory, but, you know, he invented the first wearable computer. He's just a very eccentric person. And again, what was the biography of Claude Shannon? A mind at play. But it's funny that they both looked at work as play. But even more interesting is there's a direct quote in Claude Shannon's biography where he said, you know, what we do best is what we like best. And we see Claude Hopkins saying the same thing as Claude Shannon. If that is chasing a polo ball, one will excel at that. If that means checkmating competitors or getting a home run, 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. That is awesome. And it should be. This is just fantastic writing. And it should be. The applause of athletics dies in a moment. The applause of success gives one cheer to the grave. Before we get back into this, I want to tell you about the presenting sponsor of this podcast, Ramp. I have been reading a lot about SpaceX lately. 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And you should too. Go to Ramp.com today to learn how they can help your business save time, save money, and grow revenue. That is Ramp.com. Okay. So now we're going to go back into, I just told you that, I was going to say we're going to go back into some of his ideas for advertising, but this actually talks about the fact that his father died, his mother was left a widow. So they're trying to find ways out of necessity to survive. And his mother starts making silver polish. So for at the time, a lot of housewives, you know, you had a bunch of things like you would present food or drink or whatever the case is in like these silver plates. And so his mom made a way to make the silver shiny. Okay. And so as a kid, I think he's 10, 11 years old when he's doing this, he's going door to door and trying to sell this silver polish that his mother has essentially home manufactured, right? It says, 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. But when I could get into the house and demonstrate the polish, I sold to nearly all that taught me another lesson. I have never forgotten. A good product is its own best salesman. It is uphill work to sell goods without samples. So that's again, another idea that he's going to repeat over and over again, that did one great product demonstration, letting the person use it without payment, whatever the case is, it's very, very important. Now, if you remember, one of my favorite entrepreneurs of all time is Estee Lauder. And Estee Lauder's autobiography, I think I've read three or four times. I've done probably two or three episodes on that book, if I remember correctly. And when she was starting out, she didn't have a lot of money. So her and her husband, when they're starting the company, they're like, okay, well, we have this advertising budget, right? But we don't have many, very many customers. We know we made a great product. So Estee made essentially the cornerstone of one of her, of her empire was this idea of giving a free sample. So she actually took money out of the advertising budget and decided, Hey, I'm going to shift that money from my advertising production because I have very limited means at the time. And I'm going to actually produce more of my product, not to sell, but to give away. And she would talk about the people and she would stop people on the street. She would do this obviously when she had stores as well. But she said the benefit of that is one, the product speaks for itself. If you think you have the best product, then you're going to win on that alone. But there's an inherent desire to reciprocate in human nature. So Estee goes up to a woman and says, here, try this lipstick, try this blush, whatever the case is. She tries it. She likes it. Not only will she come back to Estee to buy more of the thing that she was given for free, but then she'll tell all her friends about it. This is a very, that, that word of mouth, I forgot what she called it. She called like phone, phone, a friend or phone, a woman in, in her autobiography, but she said, you know, essentially she knew she was going to do this for her life. And she just let, she knew word of mouth was going to be the engine that powered, you know, the business that she was trying to build over the, the, the following decades. And what I love about going back to this book, what I love about this is it doesn't, it just speaks and writes very plainly. It's like, here's another lesson. Pay attention to this part. He literally says, there's 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. There are divided opinions. And so in every preference and every want, only the obstinate and the boneheaded will venture far on personal opinion. We must submit all things in advertising to the, the court of public opinion. This is the main theme of this book. I own an ocean going yacht, but do you suppose I'd venture across the ocean without a chart or a compass? So there's another idea. He's already mentioned something. He's like, well, you know, sometimes I'm on my country house and I want to steal away everybody else's else's partying. And I'm sitting back at the typewriter. Now he's like, Hey, I got a yacht too, by the way. How do you think I got that from sitting at the typewriter and coming up with words that make cash, the cash register ring. Okay. So that implied in there, which I don't think, you know, unless you read the book first, he has this idea. He started out as like a bookkeeper and he's like, the problem is I'm on the expense side of a business. And he was like, who's making all the money here. And he's like, well, if I can go away from the, be treated as an expense by the owner of this business to somebody that's bringing more sales to the owner of the business, I will get compensated because I can say, Hey, I brought you in a mil more than a million dollars of toothpaste sales. Let me get. $200,000 of the million I brought in. And so his whole thing, when he's counseling young men, and I guess young women too, to get away from the expense side of the business, stay close to the money, stay close to the money. Uh, let's go back to the section where he's, what he's talking about though. He's like, you have to study human nature. There's all kinds of things, products that you think he mentions over and over again, the importance of testing. He's like, you know, how many times somebody brought me a product that I was like, why do you want me to advertise this stupid thing? It's never going to sell. Yeah. Does the best job you possibly can. And it just sells like crazy. Cause he didn't understand. He's like that, that didn't appeal to me, but the world is huge. There's billions of people and it appealed to them. So he says some of the greatest successes I've ever known in advertising. This is hilarious. So he's also talking about hiring and some of the people that worked under him and really that you'll just get way further. If you just understand human nature, he talks about the importance of studying psychology, understanding incentives, understanding what drives people, understanding that what, uh, what in human nature, never changes. And he, he, he tried to recruit people for his company from very common uneducated people. So these are, you would say he's like, these people were street smart. They had almost no book smarts, but they damn sure knew how humans thought and what motivated them and how to influence them to buy the products that they're selling. And so he talks about two of them here. Some of the greatest successes I have ever known in advertising were ignorant men. Two are now heads of agencies. One of them has made, has made much money in advertising. A man who could hardly sign his name, but he knew people and the people bought what he had to sell. One of them, one of these men wrote copy, which would induce a farmer to mortgage his barn to respond. But every sentence had to be edited for grammar. So that's another thing he's going to repeat over and over again. Make sure you're understanding. He reads a lot of history, reads a lot of psychology, reads a lot of philosophy, understands people. Uh, he says, no man can succeed in any line where he finds himself in disagreement and we're in unhappiness results. I consider business as a game. How many times we're 34 pages into this book. And I've already mentioned this at least once. It's probably appeared four different times. By the time I get to this, I consider business a game and I play it as a game. That is why I have been and still am so devoted to it. It goes back to a Claude Shannon last week. You tend to, uh, to like, and to be good at things that you like. Uh, Charlie Munger's version of this is intense. He has this great line where he says intense interest in any subject is indispensable. If you're really going to excel at it. Uh, when I first heard Charlie say that, or I first read that Charlie said that it's like, love what you do or find another line of work. And again, you, cause you're going to be, it's all these like little things on the edge where it's like, okay, I can work eight hours a day. If you had a normal job, that's something I hate, or I can work eight hours a day. It's something I love. And even if you only constrain yourself to those eight hours, you're gonna be thinking about it. You're off time. You're going to be reading, you know, trade journals on it. You're going to be seeking out other people and building relationships with people. That are interested in the same things you are. It's just like that, that love is so important. Um, I already mentioned this, but the importance of staying close to the money, he says the big salaries are paid to the salesmen, to the men who bought in orders are to the men in the factory who reduce costs. They could increase profits. And if you can show profits, then you can command a reasonable share of those profits. Uh, everybody, when you, I've read, I don't know, probably six, I've probably done six to 10 different episodes and all the advertising agency founders, uh, most of which I found through, through David Ogilvie, but with, with all of them, they're all, we'll talk about like, there was a kind of like a blueprint or somebody they learned from uh that then they use their ideas to build their company claude hopkins is no different he really admired this guy named john powers and what he learned about studying the advertising that john powers would create he's just like well the main principle of john powers is like tell the truth you just have to tell in interesting and fascinating way so it says john powers created a new concept of advertising he told the truth but told it in a rugged and fascinating way he at the time he was working for wanamaker uh and that company was paying john powers twelve thousand dollars a year so keep in mind this is like the early 1900s this is like a crazy high salary and he says the principles of to which john powers stood are still among our advertising fundamentals and so he gives this example of one of the most interesting things that he saw john powers do so this clothing company goes they're on the verge of bankruptcy and they call powers and he immediately measures up the situation and that's what he says he goes there's only one way out tell the truth tell the people that you're bankrupt and that your only way to salvation lies through large and immediate sales the clothing dealers argue that such an announcement would bring every creditor to their door but powers said it doesn't matter either tell the truth or i quit so this is the ad okay so the ad read something like this we are bankrupt we owe a hundred and twenty five thousand dollars more than we can pay this announcement will bring our creditors down on their necks but if you come and buy tomorrow we shall have the money to meet them if not we we're gonna go to the wall these are the prices we are quoting to meet this situation it says truth was such a rarity in advertising that this announcement created a sensation people flocked by the thousands to buy and the store was saved and before we get back into this i want to tell you about app love and one of my all-time favorite quotes is from the book zero to one in that book peter teal writes he says the single most powerful pattern i have noticed is that successful people find value in unexpected places and they do this by thinking about business from first principles instead of formulas and that is exactly what applovin has done with their advertising platform applovin connects you with over a billion potential new customers in mobile games applovin allows you to capture undivided attention applovin ads are full screen videos that are watched for an average of 35 seconds that is retention that blows other ad platforms out of the water and you can launch on applovin in minutes you set the goal to get and applovin achieves it no complex setup no expertise needed and applovin scales quickly they can put your ads in front of over a billion potential customers other businesses have seen immediate results scale to hundreds of thousands of dollars of spend per day and increase their revenue by millions so you want to get started quickly before all of your competitors are on applovin and you can do that by going to applovin.com that's applovin.com and then i want to tell you about vanta vanta vanta vanta vanta helps your company prove you're secure so more customers will use your product or service vanta is an ai powered security expert that scales with you the more your business grows the more complex your security needs get and that complexity turns into chaos vanta tames that chaos for you vanta automates compliance continuously monitors your controls and gives you a single source of truth for compliance and risk so whether you're a fast-growing startup or an enterprise company vanta fits 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do what normal people do it's like okay i'm going to apply or maybe like i'll call him like uh knock on the guy's door and see if i can you know talk to talk to him one-on-one or something claude does all that but then he also has dozens of people send letters to the head of hiring that testify to his skill to claude's skill as a copywriter and advertiser he then starts writing a daily column in the newspaper on advertising and sharing everything that he learned so that the person in charge of the hiring sees it and of course you know the end result claude is going to be the one that gets that job another thing that he repeats over and over again you don't want any distance between you and the end buyer like if you're if you're right up on top of them you can hear you can see how what they reject you can see what appeal uh like lights up their eyes and you can see what they reject and you can see what they don't you have to stay close to the buyer and his whole point and this is something that a lot of the advertising agency founders said just like the best people were like daughter salesmen uh direct response advertisers and so he says study and he even said like uh think about he would spend time this is before there was lighting you know the people that would gather like in the town square he said he'd spend hours under torchlight reading and some of these people were like snake oil salesman kind of like rockefeller's dad if you studied the history of rockefeller his dad would go town to town and kind of sell like literally snake oil like uh snake oil salesman if you study remedies for everlasting life or a way to cure cancer if you drink this thing and they would stand on top of essentially like a box and they would preach and try to sell and claude said he would spend hours under torchlight listening and seeing how like what appeals worked for them so basically the advice is like stay as close as possible to the end buyers to study salesmen canvassers and fakers if you want to know how to sell goods no argument in the world can ever compare with one dramatic demonstration another thing he says over and over again i'm going to quote henry ford one of my favorite maxims from the history of entrepreneurship money comes naturally as a result of service i see this all the time you can look at ads i see especially when i fly into san francisco i do a lot of recording there now and you look at the billboards they have the worst it's like some of the most valuable companies in the world and some of the worst billboards you've ever seen because all the billboards talk about is me me me me buy my product and his whole thing is just like no one cares about your company no one cares about your product you should be positioning your ads to not about you or your product or your company about what you can do for them the basic this is a basic conception of selling this is what claude hopkins says the average salesman seeks favors he seeks profit for himself his plea is buy my goods he makes a selfish appeal to selfish people and of course he meets resistance i was selling service so he's talking about some of the success that he had early in his career he says i was selling service the whole basis of what i did for my business the advantage to myself was covered up in my efforts to please him all good salesmanship which is all he considers advertising says advertising is just salesmanship in print all good salesmanship is based on appealing to service he says over and over again he will repeat that dozens of times in the book that's not an exaggeration everywhere we see advertisers merely crying a name they say buy my brand their whole evident desire is some selfish advantage such advertising may sometimes pay to an extent but it can never pay like appeals which appear unselfish another one of his main lessons his main idea is create your advertising as if a single person was standing in front of you says my everlasting argument was against dealing with people in the mass for instance a woman once wrote to us inquiring about a sewing machine she had that on her mind and nothing else the general plan of the business that hopkins was working for was to send so she writes a letter inquiring about a sewing machine that the company's selling right the company before claude hopkins would then return her a catalog of everything he says treating all inquiries alike big mistake i urge that every inquirer should be treated like a prospect who came into a store we had a special catalog on sewing machines showing every style and price we sent that sewing so if you call in or excuse me if you wrote in about sewing machines this is what claude hopkins changed right we have a catalog dedicated to this shows everything we're doing shows every style and price send that to her okay then we also sent the names of everybody in her town in her vicinity who had bought our sewing machine we then asked her hey go see the machines in person for yourself if you'd like and then talk with the owners about whether they like it or not he says this is another valuable principle we are too apt to regard people in the mass we must get down to individuals we must treat people in advertising as we treat them in person he's gonna say that a million times that's i think that's the summary there just act if you're writing an ad you're writing a headline you're making a billboard you're making a 30-second podcast ad for god's sake we must treat people in advertising as we treat them in person center on their desires now he's combining those ideas it's not about you what do they want consider the person who stands before you with certain expressed desires however big your business get down to the units for those units are all that make size now there's another idea that he has that i've never forgotten since the first time this is probably the main idea i learned from him last time and it's this idea that you really need to tell the pains that you take to excel and to create your product even if they're not unique to your business this is fascinating so he gets hired by schlitz beer okay at the time schlitz beer was had the fifth most market share so they're you know there's four other beers that are out selling them and they hire hopkins like hey how can you help us increase our sales right and so he goes okay well first step of any great ad is research i got to figure out like what your business is about why your product is good how you make it everything else so he goes and visits them at their brewery he says i saw a plate glass rooms where beer was dripping over pipes and I asked a reason for them. They told me that those rooms were filled with filtered air so the beer could be cooled in purity. I saw great filters filled with white wood pulp. They explained how that filtered the beer. They show how they clean every pump and pipe twice daily to avoid contaminations. Every bottle was cleaned four times by machinery. They showed me artisan wells where they went 4,000 feet deep for pure water. They showed me the vats where the beer was aged for six months before it went out to the user. They took me to their laboratory and showed me their original mother yeast cell. It had been developed by 1,200 experiments to bring out the utmost in flavor. Hopkins is like, guys, what are you doing? This is amazing. Why have you not told people these things? Why do you merely try to cry louder than others that your beer is pure? Why don't you tell the reasons? The response from the company is, well, the processes we use are just the same as others. No one can make good beer without them. This is the most important part of the story. But I replied, others have never told this story. It amazes everyone who goes through your brewery. It will startle everyone in print. So then he takes what he learned and puts it into an ad. So I pictured in print those plate glass rooms and every other factor in purity. I told a story common to all good brewers, but a story which had never been told. I gave purity a meaning. Schlitz jumped from fifth place to neck and neck with first place in a few months. And he says, this doesn't just work for beer. It works for any company, any product. Again and again, I have told simple facts common to all makers in that industry, too common to be told, but they have been given the product first allied with them an exclusive and lasting prestige. That situation occurs in many, many lines. The maker is too close to his product. 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 which seem commonplace to him, might give him vast distinction. Tell the pains that you take to excel. And then a few pages later, he repeats one of his main ideas. Serve better than others, offer more help than others, and you are pretty sure to win. And a few pages after that, he hits back on service. Think only from your customer's perspective. There are other ways 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. So then he gets to the point where he's working in advertising, he's built up a little bit of talent, and then he meets, everybody met Albert Lasker. This is the guy I mentioned earlier that Claude's going to work for for 17 years, I think, and who hides Claude's original manuscript and is safe. But everybody met him and said he was just like, had some of the most charisma. This is the guy that made more money in advertising than anybody else. And this quick story is just too funny, and you might use it as an idea in your business when you're recruiting somebody. But this is just how Albert Lasker made money in advertising. He's just the guy that made more money in advertising than anybody else. He's just the guy that made more money in advertising than anybody else. And so it says, Mr. Lasker said, I have searched the country for copies, talking about copywriting, okay? This is the copy I got in New York. This is the copy I got in Philadelphia. I spent thousands of dollars to get the best copy obtainable. You see the result. Neither you nor I would submit it. Now I ask you to help me. Give me three ads, which will start this campaign, and your wife may go down to Michigan Avenue and select any car on the street and have it charged to me. And then this is what it says. 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 him their pal. Nothing he desired has ever been forbidden him. So I yielded as all due to his persuasiveness. Now, a few pages later, he goes back to one of his favorite ideas. That's another big point to consider. Argue anything for your own advantage, and people will resist to the limit. But seem unselfishly to consider your customers' desires, and they will never resist. So I yielded as all due to his persuasiveness. Now, naturally flock to you. The greatest two faults in advertising lie in boasts and in selfishness. People will listen if you talk service to them. They will turn their backs when you seek to impress an advantage for yourself. This is important. And again, both these books, it's just him documenting the mistakes and the successes that he sees people make over and over again. We just went to Schlitz beer. He's like, this is amazing. Why aren't you telling people about this? And they're like, well, because like we do it, but everybody does it. And he's like, well, he's about to mention that you actually should not write your own advertising because you're too close to your own company. And again, he ties that idea to another idea that you always need to think from the customer's perspective. There lies the chief reason why no manufacturer should ever conduct his own advertising. He's too close to his factory. His own interests tend to blind him to the interests of his customers. He fails to appreciate the customer's side. He tells of things that he takes pride in, the size of his plant or the age of his business, for example. The advertising man must study the consumer and tell the consumer what he wants to know. Again, everything from the customer's perspective. When you hear this over and over again, after you're done listening to this, just go look at, you know, flip through a magazine, go look at a billboard, see any ad that you see on social media. It's like the good ads are appealing to you. They talk about what you want. They're from your perspective and you will see, it'll be shocking once you realize this, how many companies just fail to do that very basic premise. Again, these are words in many cases are a hundred years old. This is not new information. Oh, I love this part. This is just a random thing that I think has to do with like the circle competence that Buffett talks about a lot. And Claude Hopkins sees it in, you know, his customers too, where they'll be very successful with one product and one business. And they're like, Hey, I'm a genius. And so therefore they try to go off and do a completely unrelated business and they fall flat on their face. He says, it is curious how we all desire to excel in something outside of our own province. This leads many men astray. Men make money in one business and lose it in others. They seem to feel that one success makes them super businessmen. So let me back up about how I found Claude Hopkins years ago. I was, it had nothing to do with advertising. I was reading Warren Buffett's shareholder letters. I'm about to do another episode on this. It's going to take me like probably two months to make because the book is, you know, this is like a psychopedia now that Warren has written his last shareholder letter. So she's going to take me, it's going to be the longest founders episode I ever do. The one, the previous time I did, this is still the longest episode I ever did. I think it's like back in the episode in the eighties or something. It's like three hours long. But anyways, I'm reading Warren Buffett's shareholder letters many, many years ago. And he keeps calling this guy, David Ogilvie, a genius. I'm like, what the hell's going on here? Who's David Ogilvie? So then I look into him, read David Ogilvie, read everything about him, read everything he wrote. And he'll, like everybody else, he'll tell you who his heroes were. And I kind of like chase that, you know, path down. And, um, there's something in this interaction between Buffett, who was a shareholder because Ogilvie and Mather was a public company and Buffett was making, buying up the stock. In fact, interesting enough, Buffett made more money on Ogilvie's company than Ogilvie did because Ogilvie got scared and sold his equity too early before it appreciated. That's interesting. But Buffett was giving them advice because at the time Ogilvie and Mather was going around and they were on this acquisition spree and they were like buying up all these agencies and Buffett thought that didn't actually make that much sense. And he goes, instead of buying other agencies, why not buy the best agency? And he was telling him, he's like, you should buy back your own stock. Uh, I thought that slight tangent, but I thought that was really interesting. Another thing that Claude Hopkins repeats over and over again, like let people try your product, give samples, give demonstrations, but there's a right way and a wrong way to do it. I have never found that it paid to give samples to people who do not request it. We must arouse interest in our product before it has value to anybody. I consider promiscuous sampling, a very bad plan. Indeed products handed out without asking for it. And I think that's really important. And I think that's really important. And I think that's really important. And I think that's really important. And I think that's really important. Put an ad, say, Hey, if you want to learn more about this, or you want to get a free month or whatever the case is, or I'll send this vacuum cleaner to your house and you can use it for a month or whatever. And all you have to do is fill out the thing there. They have to do something first and make it, you see this online, you give your email, whatever the case is, but it's like, just don't airdrop it on them. Cause it was like, Hey, I'm going to send, you know, 3 million vacuum cleaners to people. If you want to use a vacuum cleaner example that he uses in the book, he's like, what the hell does a vacuum cleaner show up my door for? So that's, that would be an example of promiscuous sampling. So no, just ask them. They have to do a little bit of effort, but then give them a lot in return is different when you force people to make an effort. Here we go again. He's already mentioned a dozen variations of this same idea. It's impossible to get to the end of the book or even really the end of this episode with not this, this idea being seared into your brain. You cannot go into a well-occupied field on the simple appeal of buy my brand. That is a pugnant. One must offer exceptional service to induce people to change from favorite brands to yours. The usual advertiser does not offer that exceptional service. He's talking about, he's just, he's in a C, he's in an industry of second rate talent. He says, if you give service where others failed to supply it, you can establish a great advantage for yourself. So again, it goes back to, it's not about you. It's about service over and over and over again. Another thing that he says is, and they use examples, many examples in the book where let's say you have, you know, Acme Furniture Company, or you have Mrs. B's Furniture Mart, that if you can give your product and your advertising personality, make it an individual. So you should be speaking to them as an individual. But if it comes from an individual, and then hopefully there's a real person behind it. People love companies, or excuse me, people love people way more than they love companies. And so in one of his brands, he established a personality and it's this guy named Professor Anderson, and there's an actual person behind it. Okay. And he says, I've always done that wherever possible. personalities appeal why soulless corporations do not make a man famous and you make his creation famous all of us love to study men and their accomplishments and you're seeing this a lot uh my friend lulu the survey uh advises you know many of the tech uh like the most elite founders in tech she she handles their personal comms and a lot her her manifesto is just like you should go direct like you're the one very similar to the advice that james dyson's uh mentor gave him you know half a century ago it's like you came up with the product you you know every single in and out of the product you you're the guardian of the company soul you should be the one doing the selling you should be the one out there making the case for why people should either work for your company buy your product would invest in your company all this uh again like it's a people relate to people not companies um another thing prevention is not a an appeal that's going to work you should be selling painkillers not vitamins he made a ton of money off pepsodent toothpaste which i'll get to in a minute and so he's talking about this entire chapter of everything he did for pepsodent and he says i resolved to advertise this toothpaste as a creator of beauty the natural idea in respect to a toothpaste at the time was to make it preventative so you know use it now so your teeth don't fall out or your teeth don't decay he says but my experience has taught me that preventative measures were not popular people will do anything to cure a trouble but little to prevent it countless advertising ideas have been used to prevent it and i've been using it for a long time i've been wrecked by not understanding that phase of human nature prevention offers slight appeal to humanity in general they want to be told people want to be told of rewards people want to be told the ways to be happy to be happier and to be more cheerful to be more beautiful this point is important every advertising campaign depends on its psychology success or failure is determined by the right or wrong appeal folks give little thought to warding off disasters their main ambition is to attain more success more happiness more beauty more cheer i've never referred to disasters i have never pictured the afflicted every illustration i've ever used rather showed attractive people and beautiful teeth and he says i made for myself a million dollars on pepsodent this is an insane amount of money at this time in history by the way just because i learned the right human psychology and then one of my favorite maxims that i've come across is that genius has the fewest moving parts what i love about gregory hopkins and this speaks to also albert lasker because albert lasker made more money in everybody advertising like i've told you a few times already but he also did in a simple way he didn't have art departments he didn't have all his staff his whole thing was like well if i can just write the best if i can find the best copywriting that increases sales that's the only thing my business has to do and so he just hired and the best copywriters in the world and let them write copy that made sales and then they made all the money and he wouldn't even make them work in the office so in many times uh hopkins has a like a country house and he was talking about earning you know hundreds of thousands of dollars a year at the time so that'd be making you know 20 30 million something like that in today's dollars it's just a lot of money and he's he says it was all earned at a typewriter which i operated myself without a clerk or a secretary that's incredible and then he talks about how he learned how to do this 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 an enormous amount of time more time than other men are apt to devote much more time and much more sacrifice than other men are apt to devote that is the purpose of this autobiography to help other men start where i ended goes back to one of his maxims that you should forget yourself entirely i have seen many an ad killed by a single unfortunate phrase usually a selfish phrase phrases like insist on buying 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 seek in every word to increase your good impression say only what you think a good salesman should say if that prospect stood before him do not boast he repeats that over and over again do not boast about anything more interesting to you than your prospect boasting is repulsive another thing that all the great advertisers and copywriters through history will repeat is once you have an ad that works stick to it stop changing it stop jumping around they say this over and over again you see people modern day people make this mistake over and over again the um the way that david ogilvy summarized this for me and i never forgot he says you're not advertising to standing army you're advertising to moving parade claude hopkins says the advertising man clings to the methods he established he fears to change he's talking about the good people as a matter of fact it's seldom wise to change the best way to win new customers is usually the way that won millions but the advertising becomes monotonous to the men who read every ad they always come to want something new so his whole point is like you should stick with what you're work stick with what is working don't let that your impression cloud that's effectiveness you're reading every single ad but your customers are not you're advertising you aren't advertising to standing army you're advertising to a moving parade he also talks about the fact that if you're staying close to the money and you're increasing sales you will be very very rich but you have to capture the value help create so he talks about with pepsi and toothpaste he's like hey i know my copywriting and my advertising is going to increase your sales and i'm going to put my money where my mouth is so he goes i bought shares at the beginning of the project for thirteen thousand dollars okay so i'm i'm going to put up 13 grand i'm going to buy your own buy your shares right and my advertiser is going to make that more valuable that thirteen thousand for that those shares it paid him two hundred thousand dollars of dividends and then he also sold that that thirteen thousand many years later for five hundred grand goes back to the importance of focusing of spending more hours focused on one thing if you have this singular focus like claude hapkins ad you will derive insights to the people that did not dedicate all the time and effort and midnight oil that you did they'll never get the same uh knowledge they won't have the same insights they just will not have the same effectiveness as you do i've always been an addict to work i love work as other men love work i love work as other men love work i love work as other men love play it is both my occupation and my recreation as a boy the necessity for self-support after school hours kept me from the playgrounds as a man my desire to learn all that i could about salesmanship has kept me from wasting time the only game i ever learned is business to me it has been all absorbing and then i referenced that claude just writes in a very simple way he doesn't kind of hide his points from you at all he has a chapter in scientific advertising that's called just salesmanship and that's he's like that's all advertising is advertising is salesmanship its principles are the principles of salesmanship and that's what i'm talking about here so i'm going to give you the principles of salesmanship thus every advertising question should be answered by the salesman's standards advertising is multiplied salesmanship it may appeal to thousands while the salesman will talk to one a mediocre salesman may affect a small part of your business mediocre advertising affects it all and so he continues there's one simple and right way to answer many advertising questions ask yourself would this help a salesman sell the goods would it help me sell if i met the buyer in person some tell you to be very brief that people will read but they'll read very little would you say that to a salesman with prospects standing for him would you confine him to a certain number of words that would be an unthinkable handicap consider them as prospects standing before you so it goes back to again that idea advertising salesman salesmanship all your ads should be like directed to one person as if that person was standing in front of you they've expressed interest already right that's what your headline grabbed them or your the image that you use grab them now that you have their attention how would you talk to them if there's just one person don't speak to them as don't consider them a mess i love this idea consider them as press prospects standing before you seeking information give them enough to get action so this idea of like hey everybody says they're not going to read or they won't listen to watch a commercial where the case is like people will give time to what they're interested in if you make it interesting too and the line that uh claude hopkins uses on this that david ogilvy would repeat is that the more you tell the more you sell in fact in some cases they're more likely to sell the more you sell the most successful ads are like 15 000 words long but it's an interesting story interesting information about a product that the person's already indicated interest in because they they read the headline and decided to read the body copy do not think of people a mess it's like over and over again just says the same stuff think of a typical individual who's likely to want what you sell money spending is a serious matter do not boast he said that before don't try to show off do what you think a good salesman should do with a half and a half percent of the money that you're spending on a sold person before him. The advertising man studies the consumer. He tries to place himself in the position of the buyer. His success largely depends on doing that to the exclusion of everything else. Now he has another chapter. We're in scientific advertising, which is if you buy his audio book, he includes scientific advertising in the back of this book. And he has a chapter. Again, the chapters are very simple. And I think it really illustrates the principles that he thinks are very important, the ones that he learned for decades of experience. Offer service, service, service, service. Remember that people you address are selfish. We all are. They care nothing about your interest or your profit. They seek service for themselves. Ignoring this fact is a common mistake and it's very costly in advertising. Ads say in effect, buy my brand, give me the trade you give others, let me have the money. This is not a popular appeal. The best ads ask no one to buy. The ads are based entirely on service. They offer wanted information. They cite advantages to users. Some of these ads are based entirely on service. They offer wanted information. Some of these ads are based entirely on service. They offer wanted information. The ads can seem altruistic, but they're based on a knowledge of human nature. The writers of those ads know how people are led to buy. The good salesman does not say that. say, buy my product. He pictures the customer side of his service until the natural result is to buy. And so he gives an example. At the time, this guy made hairbrushes, right? And his distribution strategies, he hired 2000 door to door salespeople, but they didn't knock on the door and say, Hey, look, I have a brush. Do you want, you know, try to brush your hair. It brushes your hair better. It does X, Y, Z. This is very fascinating. So he says he is enormously successful in an industry, which would seem very difficult. And it would be if his men asked the housewife to buy. Remember he said the best ads ask no one to buy, but they don't. They go door to door and say, I was sent here to give you a brush. I have samples here and I want you to take your choice in picking out one brush. She sees several that she wants. She's also anxious to reciprocate the gift. So the salesman gets an order. And this is the summary of the chapter. People can be coaxed, but not driven. Whatever they do, they do to please themselves. Many fewer mistakes would be made in advertising. If these facts were not forgotten. You know how it's funny how he says, Hey, don't change your ads. Just repeat it over and over again. The best way to get new customers is the way that you got the customers before them. Uh, the fact that he just repeats these ideas. He used that same idea because he just repeats them. These same ideas over and over again throughout the book. And so a few pages later, he says, the motto is the more you tell, the more you sell. It has never failed to prove out in any tests we know. It's almost like he's like wondering if you're paying attention because he'll say the same idea. Sometimes he used the different words, but it'll illustrate the same concept over and over again. And then he gets to headlines. And this is what sparked my initial interest. And it's like, you know, I'm obsessed with the best and most memorable way to essentially distill down an idea, which I think you and I do a lot on this podcast together. Uh, one of the things that I stumbled upon was when I was reading the autobiography, the four seasons, the founder of four seasons, Isidore Sharp. And he described, you know, he talks about the process of building one of the most valuable and historic brands of all time. And he kind of summarizes in one word for us. He says, excellence is the capacity to take pain. And if you read that book really is just all the pain that he had to persevere through to get to the other side of this thing. And he started wanting to build here, this ridiculous idea at the time where other people thought ridiculous, like I'm going to build the most premier luxury hotel brand in the world. And I've never built a hotel before. So it was obviously between that thought and the realization of that dream is going to be a lot of pain. And a lot of people obviously run from that pain and can't persevere through. So excellence is capacity to take pain. And so what spawned me and I had this idea, I was thinking about it this week about why I wanted to read scientific advertising was for Claude Hopkins insights on headlines. And so this is the chapter on headlines. The purpose of a headline is to pick out people you could interest. You wish to talk to someone in a crowd. So the first thing you say is, Hey there, Bill Jones, to get the right person's attention. Headlines on ads are like headlines on news items. Nobody reads a whole newspaper. We pick out what we wish to read by headlines. And we don't want headlines to be misleading. The writing of headlines is one of the greatest journalistic arts. They either conceal or reveal an interest. Always bear these facts in mind. People are hurried. They want to be amused or benefited. There may be products which interest them more than anything else, but they will never know it unless the headline tells them. The writer of this chapter, meaning himself, spends far more time on headlines than on writing. Ogilvy said the same thing. He said something like, um, 80, 80 or 90% of people will read the headline than the body copy. So therefore it follows that you should spend the majority of your time writing the headline, right? So he says I spend more for more time on headlines than on writing. Uh, I often spend hours on a single headline. Often scores of headlines are discarded before the right one is selected for the entire return from an ad depends on attracting the right sort of readers. The best of salesmanship has no chance, whatever, unless we get a hearing. So his point is that what's the point of explaining your product or describing the benefits, right? The headline gets them interested. It is the door that opens up. So they come inside and they actually like read and, and, and in this case, listen or watch or whatever the case is about your product, right? The way I think about this and why it has to be entertaining and can't be misleading. Oh, David has another great maximum. He says we can't save souls in an empty church, right? This is what infuriates me about other like business podcasts. For example, I think entrepreneurship is the most fascinating subject in the world. I think founders, people that create things that did not exist in the world are the most important people in the world. It is, they're all kinds of crazy characters and stories and fascinating ideas they have and the way they live their lives. It's insane. I'm still, uh, this podcast was started next month. So September, 2016 was when I started founders. So that's what a month from next month, it'd be 10 years. I'm still, I'm more interested in entrepreneurship today than I was when I started. I don't think I'll ever not be interested in it. How the hell you make that subject boring. It's insane to me. So you can't say souls in an empty church. We can educate and inspire, right? But like the first thing you have to do is entertain before you educate and inspire. So I think that's what they're hitting out here. It's like, you have to figure out what is the headline was the hook is going to get people interested in what you want to teach them about. And in his case, like he's writing for, for products, those products, all product is, is an idea that makes somebody else's life better. So spend a lot of time figuring out what that main appeal is to your, your, um, your, your prospect, your, the, the customer that you want to actually buy you. And, and you do that, obviously do a lot of research. He talks about that a lot too, but the reason this is so important. And I think what's one of the best examples of this when he just said, Hey, um, you know, uh, spend so much time on a single headline. Uh, the entire return could depend on just attracting the right person. And you do that through the headline. I don't know. But when I read that, I think of what Steve jobs did with the iPod. He was like, he explained the entire value prop in a handful of words, thousand songs in your pocket that peaks you up. That gets me interested in what I want a thousand songs in my pocket. How is that even possible? What'd you make? Then I'll listen to your whole presentation and I'll watch the product demo or read the ad or whatever the case is. I think it's really, really fascinating. So again, salesmanship has no chance whatsoever, unless we get here and you can't save souls in an empty church. The identical ad run with various headlines differs tremendously in this returns. It's not uncommon for a change in headlines to multiply returns from five to 10 times over. So Claude Hopkins says changing the headline can multiply returns by five to 10 times in all of these books, which are written probably two or three decades after this one. He says, uh, he's seen 19 to one difference. It's insane. Returns vary enormously due to headlines address the people you seek and them only. He will return to this idea later. Then he talks about psychology, which again, his entire chapters is very, very important. The competent advertising man must understand psychology. Human nature is perpetual. It is the same today in today's time as it was in the time of Caesar. So the principles of psychology are fixed and enduring. You will never need to unlearn what you learn about them. We learn for instance, that curiosity is one of the strongest human incentives. We employ it whenever we can. So then he gives some examples of these psychological quirks that will endure and you'll see open over again. People judge things largely by price. Uh, so he gives this example where there's this painting was announced that it costs $750,000 before you tell people that that painting cost $750,000, which at the time, you know, it would be, let's say a hundred million today. I'm just making the number up, but a big number, right? It says most people pass it by. Don't even give it a second glance. Then you tell them, Hey, that painting 750 grand. Uh, and they learn what the painting costs. They return and then surround it. It actually creates a crowd because it's so expensive. Another thing that he found was that we are tribal by nature and we like to belong to groups. So he says, it is found that if an offer is limited to a certain class of people, it is far more effective than a general offer. For instance, an offer limited to veterans of the war or to members of a lodge or to executives, those who are entitled to any seemingly advantage advantage by being part of a group will go long way not to lose that advantage. Another one, an identical offer made in different ways may bring multiplied returns. And that could be through something like changing that, the headline could be changing the way it's presented. It could be changing the fact that it needs to belong to a specific group or could even be more expensive. Another way to, uh, increase and multiply the returns of your advertising is you be specific, use actual numbers, use actual numbers, use actual numbers, use actual numbers. And then he makes this point and he gives great examples here. So you'll see this like, Hey, you need to go into some town. It's like, we're the best cheesecake in the world or something like that. It says platitudes and generalities roll off the human understanding like water from a duck. They have no impression whatsoever to say best in the world, lowest prices, et cetera, all at best, simply claiming the expected. A definitive statement is usually accepted. However, actual figures are not generally discounted. Specific facts have their full weight and effect. The weight of an argument may often be multiplied by making it specific. So he gives an example of a lot of people would sell a clothing, for example, and they would say, Hey, we have the lowest prices in America. That's not really an effective appeal. One guy who was selling a bunch of clothing says my net profit is 3%. That was a definitive statement and it proved very impressive. So again, it's essentially illustrating the same idea. Like we have really low prices. We're saying low price in America. Okay. I only make 3% profit. Well, if you're a customer, it's like, okay, that's, that's pretty wild. That means there's barely scraping by, I probably can't get this article of clothing for cheaper than anybody else that it's essentially selling at almost no profit margin. Gives another example of people, a lot of different people are selling razors to shave your face. Many makers of razors have long advertised quick shaves. One maker advertised a 78 second shave. That was the definitive statement. It indicated actual test results. That man made a sensational advance in his sales. And then he goes back to the importance of headlines. And this is a great way of summarizing his main idea. Your main appeal should lie in your headline. Whatever promise, the best promise that you have, which is the actual benefit that the customer gets from using your product, make sure it's in the headline. Go back to Steve Jobs, 1000 songs in your pocket. His main appeal was in the headline. And then he ends with effort. An ad writer to have a chance of success must gain full information on his subject. A painstaking advertising man will often read for weeks on some problem which comes up. Perhaps in many volumes, he will find few facts to use. But some one fact may be the keystone of his success. To advertise a toothpaste, this writer has also read many volumes of scientific matter that was dry as dust. But in the middle of one volume, he found the idea, which has helped make millions for that toothpaste maker. Genius, is the art of taking pains. That is too good not to say again. Genius, is the art of taking pains. The advertising man who spares the midnight oil will never get very far. Let me interrupt this where he says, hey, I'm reading through volume after volume of the scientific matter. It's dry as dust. It's boring. But I just found one single sentence, one idea that was the basis, the cornerstone of this advertising campaign that made my customer, my client millions. Ogilvy said this, had the same idea. He said, I'm going to make millions for this. I'm going to make millions for this. Same thing happened. He was reading through hundreds of pages, if I remember correctly, about his customer, Rolls-Royce. And he said it was like some obscure engineering document. Wasn't even meant for consumption of advertising. It wasn't even meant to be seen by the outside world. And he found a line that was the basis for one of his most successful advertising campaigns of all time. And it says, at 60 miles an hour, the loudest noise in this new Rolls-Royce comes from the electric clock. Genius, is the art of taking pain. The advertising man who spares the midnight oil will never get very far. Let me interrupt this where he says, I'm going to make millions for this. I'm going to make millions for this. I'm going to make millions for this. I'm going to make millions for this. An advertising campaign is usually preceded by a very large volume of data. The uninformed would be staggered to know the amount of work involved in a single ad. Weeks of work. The ad seems so simple. And it must be simple to appeal. But back of that ad may lie reams of data, volumes of information, and months of research. This is no lazy man's field. And that is where I'll leave it. Highly recommend reading both his autobiography, My Life in Advertising, and his book on advertising called Scientific Advertising. That is 430 books down, 1,000 to go. And I'll talk to you again soon.
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