YouSaid · the spoken record

Claude Hopkins

lines on the record: 76
first: 2021-03-08
most recent: 2021-03-08
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

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“I'm sure that no man has gained more from life than I have, more of true happiness and content. I trace 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.”
2021-03-08 · Founders · #170 Claude Hopkins (A Life in Advertising) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Now we reach the port 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 seventeen years I have enlarged and developed into a paradise. Here I do what I love to do in beautiful surroundings. Here, a mile apart are the contrast to show what I have gained by my efforts. Here remain some who never dared to show me what might have been. Here is my motherland, here my tabernacle, here my home.”
2021-03-08 · Founders · #170 Claude Hopkins (A Life in Advertising) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“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 the mistakes of the pioneers and the years that I spent to correct them. I have gained what Thomas Edison had gained by his twenty hour days, the satisfaction knowing that I had 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. Imitators never succeed, but human nature does not change. The principles set down in this book are as enduring as the Alps”
2021-03-08 · Founders · #170 Claude Hopkins (A Life in Advertising) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Their ups and downs did not affect me in the least. This is not recited to indicate that my incentive for work Nor was a 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 seem 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. We're saying like I'm doing work for my clients and the firm, but I'm also trying to grow the industry as a whole. And this is where he talks about what he gained from this. What have I gained? And this is just really, really good writing, this idea that the principles he's learning are as enduring as the Swiss Alps. This is fantastic. Whatever I learned by these many years of exceptional application, I have gained what others gain by medical research by spending their lives in a laboratory. My life work has been researched.”
2021-03-08 · Founders · #170 Claude Hopkins (A Life in Advertising) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“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 am 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 spends 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.”
2021-03-08 · Founders · #170 Claude Hopkins (A Life in Advertising) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It paid me some two hundred thousand dollars in dividends, and then I sold the stock for $500,000. So that's 700 grand, right? based on an investment he made for a company he's doing advertising for and this is $700,000 in 1920 money”
2021-03-08 · Founders · #170 Claude Hopkins (A Life in Advertising) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Equipped as they were, save for courage. So I was a talented as them, but I wasn't as courageous as them. I always envied their independence, which I spent thirty five years to attain. So he finally does make the jump. He says, you know, it just took me. He didn't waste 35 years because he's learning to, but if he do it all over again, he would have jumped. And part of it was his wife pushing him, you know, to have that desire because I'm 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 had 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 have 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 thirteen thousand dollars.”
2021-03-08 · Founders · #170 Claude Hopkins (A Life in Advertising) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You are too good a man to work for me. You should start out for yourself as I did, or 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 as”
2021-03-08 · Founders · #170 Claude Hopkins (A Life in Advertising) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“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 ad writers spend half their time in that. They learn by personal contacts what wins and what repulses. Then they apply their findings, 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 Dollar, 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 because of the Collison install. So the very beginning Dave's a stripe, the Collison brothers would be describing to other people like other founders.”
2021-03-08 · Founders · #170 Claude Hopkins (A Life in Advertising) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“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. 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 an ad killed by a single unfortunate phrase, usually a selfish phrase, indicating ulterior desires which repel. Phrases 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 in every word to increase your good impression. Say only what you think a good salesman should say if that prospect stood before him. Then if you could sell it in person, you can sell it in print. Do not boast. Not about your plant or your output.”
2021-03-08 · Founders · #170 Claude Hopkins (A Life in Advertising) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Going back to this idea treating ads, treating customers, personalizing them, taking like an actual ad think of an ad as a salesperson, like make it in human form, just like if somebody's inquiring something like the lady that was interested about sewing machines. The way you responded to her mail is not the way you would have responded to her 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 rock. Regardless of principles, we must always experiment 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.”
2021-03-08 · Founders · #170 Claude Hopkins (A Life in Advertising) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“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 to help other people start where I ended.”
2021-03-08 · Founders · #170 Claude Hopkins (A Life in Advertising) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“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 copymen 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 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 going to teach everybody around me. I'm going to serve those, try to help them better at their job. And as a result of that service, I'll get what I deserve. So note 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. I'm not going to 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 develop some...”
2021-03-08 · Founders · #170 Claude Hopkins (A Life in Advertising) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“He's re ramping a brand of breakfast cereal. And so he establishes an actual person to act as the brand. So he says, I established a personality. Professor A. P. Anderson. I have 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 lived. 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 in Michigan.”
2021-03-08 · Founders · #170 Claude Hopkins (A Life in Advertising) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That's why he keeps talking about over and over again in the book like all the money we start advertising can pay the national debt. Oh, so this is, okay, now I reach the part I was mentioning earlier about my note is personalities appeal soulless corporations do not he's doing them”
2021-03-08 · Founders · #170 Claude Hopkins (A Life in Advertising) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Back to his desire for free trials, Este Lauder is 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 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 value to 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 this same idea, so obviously he's telling us it's exceptionally important. You cannot go into a well-occupied, 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.”
2021-03-08 · Founders · #170 Claude Hopkins (A Life in Advertising) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“More random advice from him talking about you really should stay inside your circle of competence if you want to think about it in those 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 businessmen 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 Be and Mather, they're talking about, hey, we're going to go out. It was very common this time. We're going to go even against Olga's wishes going out and acquiring other advertising agencies. And Warren's like, instead of buying 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 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 wind up losing money on that.”
2021-03-08 · Founders · #170 Claude Hopkins (A Life in Advertising) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“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 is read that. In a few months, we induce some $30,000 dealers to stock Goodyear's 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 deer 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.”
2021-03-08 · Founders · #170 Claude Hopkins (A Life in Advertising) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Offered to name in each ad all the dealers who stock the minimum requirement or 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 it's I want you to buy a stock for me.”
2021-03-08 · Founders · #170 Claude Hopkins (A Life in Advertising) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That principle to advertising tires. He gets a Goodyear 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 another way 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. So I'm Goodyear the manufacturer. I have dealers that sell it to that end customer, but they're only buying for me as the customer needs it. But I want more money up front. 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 a freaking genius. 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 Goodyear branches as they sold. We prepared a large newspaper campaign in...”
2021-03-08 · Founders · #170 Claude Hopkins (A Life in Advertising) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“customers' desires and they will naturally flock to you. The greatest two faults lie in advertising, the greatest two faults in advertising line boasts and unselfishness. So go back to that article or the ad about book. Hey, send me money. I'll send you a book. Or how about, hey, I'm sending you the book if you like to send me money. The same desire. The bookseller has the same desire, one approach works and one doesn't. Because 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 seek to impress an advantage for yourself, this is important. So he also says that companies do this as well. And this is him applying that.”
2021-03-08 · Founders · #170 Claude Hopkins (A Life in Advertising) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Presidents have made them Presidents have made him their pow. Nothing he desired has ever been forbidden him. What a crazy sentence. Let me read that again. Nothing he desired has ever been forbidden him. 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 of his book might be like his greatest mistakes. Actually, why don't I just 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 is the greatest two faults in advertising. Lion 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”
2021-03-08 · Founders · #170 Claude Hopkins (A Life in Advertising) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I'm not going to accept a job. I'm just going to hear him out, but I'm not going to accept it. 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 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 ask 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.”
2021-03-08 · Founders · #170 Claude Hopkins (A Life in Advertising) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So just one very concise 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 in the way is easy. Okay, so he has all these experiences working for companies and 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 when 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 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 to meet Mr. Lasker. He thinks at the beginning he's like, I'm just going to.”
2021-03-08 · Founders · #170 Claude Hopkins (A Life in Advertising) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And again, I've told simple facts common to all makers in the line, too common to be told, but they have given the article given the product, first allied with them an exclusive and lasting prestige. That situation occurs in many, many lines. So many, many businesses, what are he saying there? The maker is too close to his product. He sees it 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. And this is a summary of the entire section. Tell the pains you take to excel.”
2021-03-08 · Founders · #170 Claude Hopkins (A Life in Advertising) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“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 time. He's like, we are everybody, you know, we all copy each other. And so he talks about, you'll see ads. If you say the lowest price, then your competitors will say lowest price. And then everybody starts copying. Then 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 the differentiation 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 period a meaning. The brand he's working for jumped 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.”
2021-03-08 · Founders · #170 Claude Hopkins (A Life in Advertising) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“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 where beer was aged for six months before I went out to the user. They took me to the laboratory and showed me their original mother yeast cell that had been developed by 1,200 experiments to bring out the utmost in flavor. All of the yeast used in making their beer was developed from that original cell. 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 this story. It amazes anyone who goes through your brewery brewery. It will startle everyone in print. So I pictured in print those plate glass rooms and every other form in purity. I told a story common.”
2021-03-08 · Founders · #170 Claude Hopkins (A Life in Advertising) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“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 is unknown to the customer. And if they knew it would marvel them, use it. So he goes 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? Because everybody does this. But the customer doesn't know that. And what's, again, what you know about your product is you're used to you become used to it. It will marvel your customer. So he says, then I went through the brewery. I saw 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 in 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.”
2021-03-08 · Founders · #170 Claude Hopkins (A Life in Advertising) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“He's just like, is this common sense? Like, are we, that's what a large problem with big companies, like they come 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 certain express desires. However big your business, get down to the units for those units are all that make size.”
2021-03-08 · Founders · #170 Claude Hopkins (A Life in Advertising) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“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 inquirer should be treated like a prospect who came into the store. We had a special catalog on sewing machines showing every style and price. We sent every inquirer the names of all in her vicinity who had bought our sewing machines. We asked her to see what they were.”
2021-03-08 · Founders · #170 Claude Hopkins (A Life in Advertising) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Everything you're writing as if the person is standing in front of you. This is hilarious. I guess I'll tell you the note I left myself first because it helps to understand what I'm about to read to you. You wouldn't hand her a catalog of general products if that person was asking about sewing machines. Yet the process, the business process of this particular company does that exact same thing. So it says he's doing the advertising for Montgomery Ward. He says 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 it was one person, an individual standing in front. 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.”
2021-03-08 · Founders · #170 Claude Hopkins (A Life in Advertising) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And mail it the next morning. Do you see what he's talking about there? Were you 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. Saying, hey, this book's so good. Let me go ahead and send it to you. And if you like it, send me the 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.”
2021-03-08 · Founders · #170 Claude Hopkins (A Life in Advertising) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“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, in print or in person, is based on some appealing service. Good salesmen 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. In nearly every issue of certain magazines I see descriptions 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 offered to send me the book to examine. I simply mail the coupon, I tear it out, put it into my pocket.”
2021-03-08 · Founders · #170 Claude Hopkins (A Life in Advertising) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“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 thirty years I think I would turn back this morning Now this is more, it's another hymn 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 he means by faker fakers study salesmen 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”
2021-03-08 · Founders · #170 Claude Hopkins (A Life in Advertising) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“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 I 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 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 stockyard, 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 the 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 way to the office led to a half mile of mud. Then I regretted my action. The price seemed too great to pay.”
2021-03-08 · Founders · #170 Claude Hopkins (A Life in Advertising) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“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 have, I don't know if uncertainty is 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. He's like, in some degree it's a celebration of his career 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 derive any insights from his work. But it's also not the uncertainty is 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 ahead of advertising. And Claude, you talk about his ambition. Claude finds out 105 other people applied. And for some reason, he wants it more now because of that. He gets really competitive. He has dozens of people send letters about his skills as a writer and advertiser to the company.”
2021-03-08 · Founders · #170 Claude Hopkins (A Life in Advertising) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I had built a new home in Grand Rapids, all the friends I knew were there as well. I enjoyed prestige there. I knew that in a larger field I would have to sacrifice the things that I loved 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 further ambition is not the best decision for your life. This is very confusing. It can be very confusing. Ambition is everywhere applauded. But I have often returned to Grandma Rapids to envy my old associates. They continued in a quiet, sheltered life, or quite quiet, sheltered fields. They met no large demands. Success and money came to them in moderation. But in my turbulent life, as I review 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”
2021-03-08 · Founders · #170 Claude Hopkins (A Life in Advertising) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Is the leverage that a great idea can give you, right? After that, I gave up my This is also what I like about this book, he talks about, like, it's not, hey, I'm fantastic, I'm great. It's not a really celebration of his life. It's just like, this is how I looked at things. I could be content towards the end of my life that I did things, but there are alternate paths to consider. And this is where we see he's not sure 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 read this. The point is that everybody's going to go through periods of self-doubt, our uncertainty in their life, and then we just got to keep working our way through it, right? Now I approach a 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.”
2021-03-08 · Founders · #170 Claude Hopkins (A Life in Advertising) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Differently. Any man in a bank, a lumber office, a tire concern or a grocery has a far better opportunity than I had. The only difference lies in his conceptions, meaning his ideas or 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 love little small compact books. I 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, $12. I don't even know what I paid, but it's remarkable. I recommend reading it. It's really interesting. I'm still in this section about him finally making the switch and doing so because he wind up hitting on two really good ideas to sell more carpet sweepers, right? And really what he's about to say here.”
2021-03-08 · Founders · #170 Claude Hopkins (A Life in Advertising) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Put some wood coating on a bunch of sweepers. We're going to sell quarter million of them. Like that just sounds ridiculous, but it actually happened. It multiply the use of carpet sweepers, and it gave to Bissell sweepers the practical monopoly which they maintain 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 would last ten 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, how can you advertise? You're making a dollar for every decade per customer. So he's talking about the need for looking at things creatively, doing things differently. Experiment.”
2021-03-08 · Founders · #170 Claude Hopkins (A Life in Advertising) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Famous writer and marketer talk. It's like he references shorthand. It's like a purple cow. If you're driving down the road, you're used to seeing, you know, black and white cows. They're sitting there standing next to each other, maybe eating some grass. But if one of them is purple, you'd stop and be like, what the hell's happening here? So he uses this idea. It's like, okay, I knew a lot about woods and what they look like and 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 limit time, hey, we're going to put out you can pick a newspaper and you can pick which would we're going to have 12 different models. And this is the result of this. This is what I mean about why Claude, I think, was so hell-bent on experimentation because you derived counterintuitive unpredictable insights from experimentation that you would never would otherwise. And no one would think, okay, we saw”
2021-03-08 · Founders · #170 Claude Hopkins (A Life in Advertising) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“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. It's like, I'm getting, I'm on the wrong side of the transaction. I'm going to stay closer to the money. Okay, so he gets his next idea because he has he's interested in, 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 set different kinds of woods and trees and he'd send it around to people. And so he had this idea. He's 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, they're going to stop. Like, what is happening? Seth Goden.”
2021-03-08 · Founders · #170 Claude Hopkins (A Life in Advertising) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Work. I think I could do a better job. So he says, I said that cannot sell carpet sweepers. There's not one word in the pamphlet 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 writing his first ad and the way he approaches the way he gets this opportunity because it's a very 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 what's about to happen. So he's going to attack this, but he's like, okay, can we sell this by mail? Okay. The carpets were business was then in its infancy. Users refuse and sales were 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 had 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 drove cards they say the queen of Christmas presents was the headline, and I went to the manager and asked his permission to”
2021-03-08 · Founders · #170 Claude Hopkins (A Life in Advertising) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“disciple of Rosser Reeves. When he's having lunch or dinner or whatever it was, 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, 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, okay? A clothing concern was on the verge of bankruptcy. They called in powers and he immediately measured up the situation. And this is what powers 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 large and immediate sales.”
2021-03-08 · Founders · #170 Claude Hopkins (A Life in Advertising) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Would never make that as a bookkeeper or anything else. So now we get to the point where he's learning, again, there's really no He winds up, this is like a potential blueprint for him. He winds up competing with him. This is a 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 a 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 this sentence so important, right? So we learned from David Olgrey. David Olgarby says, hey, one of my, I was.”
2021-03-08 · Founders · #170 Claude Hopkins (A Life in Advertising) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And when times are tough or when a new CO takes place or 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 Claude, 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 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 four million dollars 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.”
2021-03-08 · Founders · #170 Claude Hopkins (A Life in Advertising) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“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 the important part. He gets this pie, but then he's like, hey, you want a job? And he arranged for his salary of six dollars per week so I could have pie every day. Oh, so I need to back up too. I skipped over some. He's not yet advertising yet. He's being trained as like a gopher, like a bookkeeper. And this is where he realizes like, I'm on the wrong side of this transaction. And you and I have talked about this many times. The way to summarize just good life advice in general is if you're working for a company, stay close to the money. People, they start out in 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.”
2021-03-08 · Founders · #170 Claude Hopkins (A Life in Advertising) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And he realizes 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 carpet sweeper company. He was a genial man, and I saw in him a chance at a higher salary. One day I waylaid him on his way to lunch. I pictured the difficulties of a young man living on $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. He has to skip two meals a week, not a day. Above all, I pictured my dream of pie. So saying I just really want to pie. I knew a restaurant which served pie at dinner, but the board was $3.50.50 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.”
2021-03-08 · Founders · #170 Claude Hopkins (A Life in Advertising) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Finally accepts Albert Lasker's being recruited by Albert Lasker, which he talks about like Lasker's persuasion power was unbelievable. So a lot of the lessons that he's going to apply once he's actually working advertising, he developed by working at a bunch of businesses. So one of them is he works for this brand still around, Bissell, carpet sweeper company is what it's named then. I think it's just named Bissell now, if I'm not mistaken. But this is The reason I bring this to your attention is because This is where he's discovering a quirk in human nature. He does not have a lot of money. He's like, there's places where you can rent 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 the packaged 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.”
2021-03-08 · Founders · #170 Claude Hopkins (A Life in Advertising) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Again, that main insight. It's like people want to buy from people. Mrs. Brown's meat pies denote to the customer. It's like thinks of, you know, maybe your mother's home cooking or whatever the case was. It's a very strong instinct in humans. I guess this is his point there. Now Claw just has some general advice about career. You could 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. He does not start out as an advertising agent. Working an 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...”
2021-03-08 · Founders · #170 Claude Hopkins (A Life in Advertising) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source