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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“And you're attracted to people that talk like people. No one goes out and reads the writing of a mindless corporation. So I think he calls it solace. I want to say faceless. No, no. He says soulless corporation. So his point, this idea is like, it's just some dude in a shabby restaurant making meatpies at night, but he calls him Mrs. Brown. They use that same thing over and over again. Claude will develop personalities for businesses based on real people. And usually it'll be, even if the person doesn't work there, like maybe it's the same model, person you photograph, but that becomes the physical representation of the company. He does this for women's clothing. What's the other thing he does it for? I can't remember at the moment. Hopefully I'll run into it, but he uses examples like, oh, it's like, it's a guy. I do have a highlight on it. I know I do, so I'm sure I'll cover it. It'll come to mind when I get to that part, but just remember that main point.”
2021-03-08 · Founders · #170 Claude Hopkins (A Life in Advertising) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Larger demand. I want capital to expand it. Now here's Claude's reaction to this. I saw in that man primeval instincts. His meepies did not attract me, but his rare insight to human nature did. So I sent out a man to investigate. He found that the writer was a night cook in a shabby restaurant and he was making eight dollars per week. I brought him to my office and I offered him twenty five dollars per week to learn advertising. He came with me and he is now one of the leading advertising men of the country. So he talks about two insights there is one like he's in a position to know that people will eat meatpies because he's in a restaurant, right? But the main insight there is that I've named them Mrs. Brown's meatpies because people like home cooking. That is the main insight. Claude mentions over and over again. There's really no such thing as a corporation. It's just an abstraction, right? People like people.”
2021-03-08 · Founders · #170 Claude Hopkins (A Life in Advertising) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And he's going to give us an example here. And he's going to say, when you find these people, who was it? I think it was Peter Taylor. So it's like, you have to find undiscovered talent. When you find these people, you have to hire them. It doesn't matter what their education was. He clearly demonstrated an understanding of human nature that they have value. So it says at the time we were seeking all the time we were seeking and advertising men with the impulses of the majority. We never asked their education. We never asked their literary qualifications. Those lacks are easily supplied. But let a man prove to us that he understands human nature and we welcome him with open arms. So he's a direct example of him finding somebody and then hiring that person. One day I received a letter from a man who had evidently addressed me at random. He said, there is great demand for ready-made meat pies, and I make them. I have named them Mrs. Brown's meat pies because people like home cooking. I have created a considerable demand and I know there exists a much larger”
2021-03-08 · Founders · #170 Claude Hopkins (A Life in Advertising) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Things how they are, you describe them as how you are. And many people fail to ever learn a lesson. We live in a democracy. I just read the part. Only the obstinate, the boneheaded will venture far on personal opinion. We must submit all things in advertising as in everything else to the court of public opinion. This, and why am I reading this? Because he's saying this is a main point. Pay attention to this. And I like that he doesn't beat around the bush. This writing is very clear and he tells you what to focus on. This, you will see, is the main theme of this book. And here's a little bit of a flex for you. I own an ocean going yacht. But do you suppose I would venture across an ocean without a chart or a compass? So now he talks about the importance of studying human nature. And he says, let me digress here to say that the road to success lies through ordinary people. They form the vast majority. The man who knows them and is one of them stands vastly a better chance. Some of the greatest successes I have ever known in advertising”
2021-03-08 · Founders · #170 Claude Hopkins (A Life in Advertising) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Almost any other car for, I forgot that it increased sales by a lot. I can't remember the exact degree, but it was very valuable. The point is the reading and the research is valuable. So this is more about him on the value of research because a lot of life is counterintuitive. And yet we go through life thinking how we think is how everybody else thinks. It's just not true. She says, this taught me another lesson. We must never judge humanity by ourselves. The things we want, the things we like, may appeal to a small minority. The losses occasioned in advertising by venturing on personal preference would easily pay the national debt. We live in a democracy. On every law, there are divided opinions. Soon in every preference, every want. So saying no matter what, you put one thing up and people are going to have a million different opinions about the same exact thing. We don't. People like, oh, I see what I cringe at when people say, oh, I call things how they are. Or I say that it's like, no, you don't call things how they are. You don't describe.”
2021-03-08 · Founders · #170 Claude Hopkins (A Life in Advertising) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That taught me the rudiments of another lesson I have never forgotten. A good product is its own best salesman. It is uphill work to sell goods and print or in person without samples. The hardest struggle of my life has been to educate advertisers to the use of samples, or to trials of some kind. They would not think of sending out a salesman without samples, but they will spend fortunes on advertising to urge people to buy without seeing or testing. Okay, moving on, let's go to another lesson. They talked about this is going to echo what is Ogabi talk about over and over again, research, research, research. Read more, study more, read your product, read books about your product, talks about spending three or four weeks reading all these engineering guides when he got the Rolls-Royce account and finding one line after spending 100, 200 hours, whatever it was reading, he found one line and he used that as his headline, and that winds up producing more sales.”
2021-03-08 · Founders · #170 Claude Hopkins (A Life in Advertising) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Manufacturing more product. And that was more product meant to give away. And so we're going to see the power of demonstration and actually letting your product speak for itself, which is something Claude talks about over and over again. And remember, he's writing these words over 120 years ago. It's still true today. History doesn't repeat. Human nature does. Mother made a silver polish. I molded it into a cake form and wrapped it in pretty paper. Then I went from house to house to sell it. I found that I sold about one woman in 10 by merely talking about the polish at the door. So, okay, I'm at 10% success rate. But when I could get into the pantry and demonstrate the polish, I sold nearly all.”
2021-03-08 · Founders · #170 Claude Hopkins (A Life in Advertising) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“His career. I would offer to place one bill, one flyer, one flyer in each home for $2. It meant traveling some thirty-five miles. Other boys offered to do the same job for dollar fifty, but they would place several bills in a home and would skip all the faraway homes. I asked advertisers to compare the results. I soon obtained a monopoly. That was my first experience with traced results, so he's going to use the word traced results a million times in this book. It's just saying that you shouldn't be doing anything that you can't prove that its effectiveness, okay? That's how you think about the term that he's going to use in a bunch of different examples in different domains. It taught me to stand for known and compared returns. And I've urged them ever since. In no other way can real service reveal its advantage doing anything blindly is folly. Okay, so that's one of his main ideas. You need to be able to trace what you're actually doing.”
2021-03-08 · Founders · #170 Claude Hopkins (A Life in Advertising) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“just like the love of play. The terms are interchangeable. What others call work I call play and vice. We do best what we like best. If that is chasing a polo ball, one will probably excel in that. If it means checkmating competitors or getting a home run in something worthwhile, he will excel in that. So it means a great deal when a young man can come to regard his life work as the most fascinating game that he knows, and it should be. The applause of athletics dies in a moment, the applause of success gives one cheer to the grave. Okay, so those are lessons he's still going to apply way further in life than we are. We're still in his other life. I want to talk about the fact that he's going around placing ads that other people are making. He's just delivering them to other people's homes when he was a young boy. Really, what is happening in the session is taught him the value of being able to compare results with inferior competition. And so this is another lesson you learn as a young boy that he's going to apply.”
2021-03-08 · Founders · #170 Claude Hopkins (A Life in Advertising) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Note what I have done while they loafed. Okay, let me read that again because this is kind of weird writing a little bit, even though he's usually a really good writer. Note what I have done while they loaf there this evening, built most of the porch on my home. Soon I will be sitting there in comfort, making love to a pretty wife. They will always be sitting on those soap boxes around the grocery store. Which is work and which is play? If a thing is useful, they call it work. If useless they call it play, one is as hard as another. One can be just as much a game as the other. In both there is a rivalry, there's a struggle to excel the rest. All the difference I see lies in the attitude of mine. So that's the end of his quote.”
2021-03-08 · Founders · #170 Claude Hopkins (A Life in Advertising) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Easy choice is hard life. The men would go at it stoically and work as a boar, but the foreman made the work a game. The man built his home in the evenings. After 10 hour days on the railroad, he cultivated a garden around it. Then he married the prettiest girl in the section and lived a life of bliss. Eventually he was called on to some higher post, but not until I learned a great many lessons from him. And we're going to get into those lessons right now. I have to say when I read this section for some reason what popped into my mind was something I learned all the way back on founders number 125 with the biography of Charles Ketering. And in that, if you don't know who he is, he's a genius. He was extremely influential in the early automobile days. But he says something in that book that I never forgot. He talks about the value. Like, yeah, he went to college and he went to school. He's like, but the person I learned most from was an old wagon maker. And his name was Hiram Sweet, and he talks about like...”
2021-03-08 · Founders · #170 Claude Hopkins (A Life in Advertising) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“There's a vast difference between the two. So the helpers worked from necessity. They did as little as possible. They counted the hours to quitting time. Then on Saturday nights, they would go to the city and spend all they had earned in a week. The foreman, by contrast, worked with enthusiasm, and this is where he sees two different paths, two different approaches to work, and decides, hey, I'm not taking the boring path. The men would go at it stoically, and work as though work was a bore. But the foreman made the work a game. That man built his own home in the evenings. So remember what he's talking about, the difference between him and students. You know, most people, they just go to school. That's what they did. I'm working before school. I'm going to school and I'm working after school. I'm working on the weekends. It's not very much different. This guy's trying to be productive and he knows that being productive, especially in his off-time, is going to lead him to an easier life later on. I like the idea of hard choices, easy life, as opposed to how most people approach life.”
2021-03-08 · Founders · #170 Claude Hopkins (A Life in Advertising) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Burn it. You have no right to occupy a young man's most impressive years, most precious years, with rot like that. If he spends four years to learn such theories, he will spend a dozen years to unlearn them. Then he will learn in the race that he will never attempt to catch up. Okay, so you didn't have formal schooling, but he had a lot of experience, and that's where he learns. He also learns from older people, people that are further down the life path than him. And this is an example of this. This is really interesting because he learns from a railroad foreman. And I would say this is like the kernel, the very beginning of this idea of treating work like play. So it says another man exerted a remarkable influence on my impressive years. He was a railroad section formal. So this is a person who taught him a lot in a short amount of time. He impressed me with the difference between him and his helpers. You're talking about the supervisor, he's the one running the crew, and then the people working underneath.”
2021-03-08 · Founders · #170 Claude Hopkins (A Life in Advertising) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Rich when he's writing those words. Okay, so let me continue along this line. He talks about this a lot. But in millions of humble homes, the common people will read and buy. They will feel that the writer knows them. And they, in advertising, form 95% of our customers. To poverty, I owe many experiences which taught me salesmanship. Had it not been for poverty, poverty, I would not have been a house-to-house canvasser, so door-to-door salesman is the word he uses the word house-to-house canvasser, but that's what he means. And there I learned the most I know about human nature as I applied to spending money. So a summary of that section is one of the benefits of poverty is I learn sales. To poverty, I owe the fact that I never went to college. I spent those four years in the school of experience instead of a school of theory. This is also something you're going to see a lot of the things, a lot of the highs.”
2021-03-08 · Founders · #170 Claude Hopkins (A Life in Advertising) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Father was the son of a clergyman. His ancestors far back had been clergymen, bred and schooled in poverty, so this was his natural state. I owe much to that condition. It took me among the common people of whom God made so many. I came to know them, their wants and impulses, their struggles and economies, their simplicities, those common people whom I know so well became my future customers. When I talk to them in print or in person, they recognize me as one of their kind, and this is something that he feels other people made the mistake. They start out poor, they get rich, they move away. He stayed in the same community. In fact, he talks about later on having sometimes because opportunity presented itself, having to move Chicago, having to move to bigger cities, he's like, I don't like this. I want to go back home. And towards the end of the book, his insights on the benefit, he's got really beautiful writing, but also beautiful insights towards the end of the book. Well, the benefit.”
2021-03-08 · Founders · #170 Claude Hopkins (A Life in Advertising) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It means that a man has sacrificed all else in life to excel in this one profession. It means a man to be pitied rather than envied perhaps. Now I appreciate that he ended with that one word perhaps because it leaves it open to interpretation. Based on reading both of his books, in my opinion, if we can bring Claude Hopkins back from the dead and ask him, would you do anything different? I don't think he'd do much different. Because yes, he did work a lot. Yes, he did make sacrifices to do so. But he also worked remotely, worked from home for a large part of his career. And two, he treated work as a game. And he's got a lot of interesting insights and I would say perspectives we can adopt around that. I shall share that with, I'll share more with that later. I'm still in his early life, though. This is where he's going to explicitly talk about the benefits of poverty, which is very interesting. Through Father, I gained poverty. And that was another blessing.”
2021-03-08 · Founders · #170 Claude Hopkins (A Life in Advertising) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“There is some difference in brains, of course, but it is not support as a difference in industry. The man who does two or three times the work of another learns two or three times as much. He makes more mistakes and more successes, and he learns from both. If I had gone higher than others in advertising or done more, the fact is not due to exceptional ability, but to exceptional hours. Now that makes sense, okay? If you want to learn faster, we saw this with Larry Miller. He takes this job at working at the counter at an autoparts store, and he did that because, and he worked from open to close because he's like, I need to learn fast and the way to learn fast is by exposing yourself to more successes and more failures. This is Claude Hopkins saying that, you know, 100 years ago. But that makes sense. You put in more time, you have more experience, you're going to learn more. But this, how he ends this section is a surprising part.”
2021-03-08 · Founders · #170 Claude Hopkins (A Life in Advertising) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The value in other choice of other lifestyles, which I found really interesting. So he says, oh, I guess I'm going to run over this point too. I am not advising others to follow my example. I would not advise a boy of mine to do so. Life holds so many other things more important than success that work and moderation probably brings more joy. So how would I summarize that section? I worked all the time. I would not advise my son to do the same. There is some difference in brains, of course, but it is not so important as the difference in industry. Now this is a very interesting takeaway. This is my note. I'll read my note to you first before I read the section because that might help understand at least my interpretation of what's happening at this point in the book. Maybe you pity the successful, not envy.”
2021-03-08 · Founders · #170 Claude Hopkins (A Life in Advertising) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Working hours, when I ceased before midnight, that was a holiday for me. I often left my office at 2 o'clock in the morning. Sundays were my best working days because there were no interruptions. For sixteen years after entering business I rarely had an evening or a Sunday not occupied by work so let me pause right here in the middle of this one thing to one I think beneficial thing that I learned from reading this book I'll tell you up front. He didn't really have any other interests besides advertising. He was obsessed by it. And so that's why it's beneficial reading his autobiography because very few people are going to put as much time and effort as he did. Not saying that we want to replicate this. In fact, he talks about in this book openly, and I'll share with you later, you know, doubting, did I make the right decision? You know, I look around, I see other people that had a lived more balanced life towards the end, he dies about five years after he writes this book, you know, he does arrive at the fact that he was content with the way he lived his life because he thought it was true to himself, but he does see”
2021-03-08 · Founders · #170 Claude Hopkins (A Life in Advertising) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“On Saturdays I scrub the two schoolhouses and distribute them. He talks about a lot in the book the benefits of growing up poor. And there's two benefits that he references over and over again about growing up poor is one, it taught him how to work really hard, which he applies even when he didn't have to. And two, it taught him how normal average people thought. And he says, the fact that he grew up poor, the fact that he grew up around the masses, he calls him like the 95% is why he understood how they thought. And so if you understand how somebody thinks, you can sell to them as well. And that is also how he thinks about advertising. He's credited with what many people consider the best description of advertising, which is salesmanship in print. He does not look at advertising as a way to entertain you. I'm trying to sell a product to you, and I need to know if my efforts are effective or not. Okay, so I guess I ran over my own point here because he's going to talk about this work ethic that he inherited from his mother, stays with him for the rest of his life. And after years, I did the same in business.”
2021-03-08 · Founders · #170 Claude Hopkins (A Life in Advertising) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“from school to school to sell them. She did the work of three or four women. She developed three or four careers. From my earliest years under her direction and incentive, I did likewise. I have supported myself since the age of nine, and he using that age, that line of demarcation as a time when he had support himself because of his father passing away. He says other boys, so he talks about, yeah, I went to school, but I didn't use that as that was just my day. That was just one thing that I had to do, but I had to work as well. He says, and then he's going to compare and contrast his approach at a young age to other boys that were his same age. Other boys, when they went to school as I did, counted their school work as a day. It was an incident to me. Before school, I opened two schoolhouses, opened the doors for two schoolhouses, built the fires, and dusted the seats. After school, I swept those schoolhouses. Then I distributed the newspaper to sixty five homes before supper.”
2021-03-08 · Founders · #170 Claude Hopkins (A Life in Advertising) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Both as an owner and a trustee. I have never gambled in a large way, whether acting for myself or for others. So the failures I have made, and there are many, have never counted strongly against me. I have escaped the distrust engendered by conspicuous disaster. When I lost I lost little in money, and nothing in confidence. When I won, I often gained millions for my client and a wealth of prestige for myself. That I largely owe to my mother. I owe her vastly more. She taught me industry. I can scarcely remember an hour, a night, or a day when mother was not at work. She was a college graduate with great intellectual powers. There came a time when, as a widow, she had to support her children by teaching school. Before and after school she did the housework. In the evenings she wrote kindergarten books for schools. When vacation came,”
2021-03-08 · Founders · #170 Claude Hopkins (A Life in Advertising) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Becoming alienated from her later on because she's a religious fundamentalist. And when he admits that he doesn't share her view, she says stuff like, oh, you're no longer my son. And he was largely raised by his mother. His father dies, I think, when he's nine years old. But even though at the time he's writing this book, his mother's long dead, he was alienated from her, he talks about learning most of the values of his career that he uses to apply in his career in advertising came from her. And this is about his mother teaching him industry. And he specifically references that she did the work of three or four women. So it says, because my mother, because of my mother, a dime to me has always looked as big as a dollar, not my dimes only, but the other fellow's dimes as well. So he's referencing, obviously, when your businesses are hiring him to do their advertising spend. So just as he's going to be frugal and make sure he's getting value for his own money, he does the same thing for his clients. I've spent them carefully.”
2021-03-08 · Founders · #170 Claude Hopkins (A Life in Advertising) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Advertising men, more businessmen than anything else I know. That fact will be emphasized again and again in this book. I stress it here in tribute to the source of my prudence safety first has always been my guiding star. A Scottish mother is the greatest asset a boy can have who desires a career in advertising. Then economy and caution are instinctive with him. They are fundamentals. Success save by accident is impossible without them. So what he's referencing there is in advertising some people will spend large amounts of money without actually knowing if they're effective or not. Claude's modus operandi is he does a lot of small tests. He wants to prove that it's effectiveness before doing it on a large scale. And then once you prove its effectiveness, you bet heavy. So he says, let's go back to the influence of his mother. His mother plays a large role.”
2021-03-08 · Founders · #170 Claude Hopkins (A Life in Advertising) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“My only claim for credit is that I have probably worked twice as long as anybody else in this field. I have lived for many years in a vortex of advertising. Naturally, I learn more from experience than those who have had a lesser chance. Now I want that experience so far as possible to help others avoid the same difficult climb. I set down these findings solely for the purpose of aiding others to start far up the heights I scaled. There is nothing to be gained for myself save the satisfaction. Had someone set down a record like this when I began, I would have blessed him for it. Then with the efforts I here describe, I might have attained some peaks in advertising beyond any of us now. May I live to see others do that? That is Claude Hopkins describing the why behind writing his autobiography, and that's an extra from the book that I'm going to talk to you about today, which is My Life in Advertising.”
2021-03-08 · Founders · #170 Claude Hopkins (A Life in Advertising) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“This book is not written as a personal history, but is a business story. I have tried to confine myself to matters of instructive interest. The chief object behind every episode is to offer helpful suggestions to those who will follow me, and to save them some of the midnight groping which I did. Any man who by a lifetime of excessive application learns more about anything than others owes a statement to successors. The results of research should be recorded. Every pioneer should blaze his trail. That is all I've tried to do.”
2021-03-08 · Founders · #170 Claude Hopkins (A Life in Advertising) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source