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David Ogilvy

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2021-03-01

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2021-03-01

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1. “That's not how you pronounce it. It is. Lucre, according to Google Translate. Lucre. Okay. So hopefully I get this right for you. Let me read this sentence again. I figured that the same amount would produce three times as much rate just sounds cooler to me, but as much money in America as in Little England. Money was never far from the service with Ogovy. And he could be startling direct. His first question to the head of a majoring advertising group was, how much money do you make? How much money are you worth? That's hilarious. Though he entered advertising to make money, Olga had become interested obsessively interested in the business itself. He said that he had read every book that had ever been written on the subject and as a young man had reason to believe he would be good at it and would enjoy it since American advertising was years ahead of advertising anywhere else. He decided to study the trade where it was done best. So remember that a couple weeks ago it was”

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2. “27 years, so that's actually something that's going to be really, really interesting. One of Ogarby's strengths was that he played the same tune all of his life. He be prepared to repeat yourself for years. He develops this, and he obviously learned more than at 25. But even in the first years of his advertising agency, he found what works and he stuck to it. So the idea that you need to repeat yourself for many years because essentially he's teaching his philosophy to all the new people, his new clients, his new customers, everybody around him, right? But the main lesson is to stick to the fundamentals. I always thought it was really interesting. And people, the reason I think this is important to bring up is because we have a tendency humans have a tendency to overcomplicate things. And so I was just watching this interview with Kobe Bryant right before he died. And he was talking about, he's like, you know, my 12-year-old plays basketball and they're always trying to teach them all these new tips and tricks. And he's just like, and, you know, he was an expert.”

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3. “In every department. And so this is where the first time we see his fanatical desire to learn every single possible thing he can about his profession. This is how he was at the beginning of his career, and I would say he maintained this and only added on it later on. Finally, Ogrevie was ready to start his career. He subscribed to a Chicago clipping service so he could get all the new advertising campaigns from America and copied the best for his British clients. He studied the business feverishly, reading everything he could find. After just one year the young man had learned enough to write a marketing plan, which he described many years later to his partners in New York, and so he's now, let's see, fifty two, and he's looking back at what he was writing. He says, in the section on advertising, there's a passage which proves two things. A, at 25, I was brilliantly clever. And B, I have learned nothing new in the subsequent...”

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4. “He also talks about something, you know, some people are a little bashful about that you should not be scared of self-promotion. He says if you can't advertise yourself, what hope do you have of being able to advertise anything else? So he uses this instruction manual as a way to get his first job in the advertising agency. He idolizes his older brother. It winds up being his best friend for the last like 30 years of his life. And his brother is working for a advertising company in London. So he says he sent the manual to his brother at Mather and Crowther as evidence of his aptitude for advertising and was hired as a trainee in London. The Aga experience provided him a foundation for his beliefs about advertising and instilled in the young man the habit of hard work. And as he would later recall, when Mather and Crowther doubled his salary, I tasted blood. He was 24 years old. It was his first experience in advertising, and he spent time.”

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5. “His eventual company is we sell or else. And he met for his clients and for the firm. He believes about his beliefs about the purpose of advertising were shaped by his reception at the doors of Scottish households. No sale, no commission, no commission, no eat that left a mark on me. So he becomes the company's most successful sales representative so much that they ask him to write a manual. This is really interesting. There's some notes from the sales manual he wrote. So effective was Olga be at selling stoves that the company asked him to write a guide for the enlightenment of his fellow salesmen. Published in 1935 when he was 24 years old, the theory and practice of selling the aga cooker became the company's sales Bible. Fortune magazine called it probably the best salesman you'll ever written. Its portrayal of a good salesman may derive from Olgarby's view of himself. This is a quote from twenty four-year-old David Ogave. The good salesman combines his tenacity of a bulldog with the manners of a spaniel. If you have any charms,”

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6. “He offered to give free cooking lessons with each stove and found plenty of takers. Olgovi revealed his sales approach. He described how he'd always go around to the back of the house to talk to the cook about the aga, because if the cook was on his side, if the cook was not on his side, he could never sell the lady of the house. When he sold more by offering six cooking lessons for three, let's call it Euros, that's not the, I don't know what the currency is, but let's say three euros, when he sold more by offering six cooking lessons for three euros, but three lessons if they bought the stove, Ogarvy learned something about the power of the word free, the experience of door-to-door selling turned Ogovi into a salesman. Otherwise, it might have been something quite different. It made me think always in terms of selling things, which is what he's known for and developing his advertising, right? One of the mottos of...”

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7. “Okay, so I'm obviously going to be fast forwarding. The book goes into more detail. I hope you do read it. It's fantastic. So I'm going to go into, he leaves, he starts becoming a door-to-door salesman. Again, this is all stuff he's going to use later on in his life, right? So he's selling, it's a Scottish company, I think. Maybe he's doing it in Scotland. I don't know if it's a company Scottish, but they're selling these expensive ovens. So he says he was promoted to become the company's first sales representative in Scotland, selling stoves door to door. It's called the Aga. The Aga was the most expensive stove on the market making cold calls in the depths of the depression could not have been easy. But Ogovy made sales by showing cooks how to use the AGA, doing the cooking himself if necessary. So what is he doing? He's teaching.”

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8. “Petard once confronted him, my dear David, what is not perfect is bad So he's working really hard and what's very interesting he's not making a lot of money but he's getting a lot of non-monetary value from this work right working in underground kitchens in the underground kitchen 10 hours a day six days a week by early morning Ogavi would be soaking wet from head to foot It was exhausting work for which young Ogavy was paid $7 a week, but it got him out of academia, taught some lasting lessons, and provided him with stories he never tired of relating.”

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9. “Peeling potatoes, and I was standing like this lounging against a wall. Then this chap came by me and came by and told me, stand up straight. Everything you do here is important. Be proud of everything you have to do. We've heard this before. One of the most influential as far as technology entrepreneurs in modern day, one of the most influential books that's talked about over and over again is Bill Walsh's The Score Takes Care of Itself. I think it was Founders 106, and it's that idea. Do all the little things right, and then the score will take care of cells. You don't have to worry about anything else, but everything you do from answering phones to carrying your helmet, everything to the organization of your locker, to how you write memos, everything Bill Walsh did. He made sure the little things were done right so the score would take care of itself. And they were saying the exact same idea in a French kitchen in the 1930s. I made an impression. What he learned about hot cuisine is less relevant than the standards he digests.”

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10. “So it's a very high end, one of the best restaurants in Paris at the time. And a guy that's running, the head chef is relentless. And it's Monsieur Petard, maybe? I'm going to call him Petard. It's probably not how you pronounce his name, but whatever. The Imperius head chef. Petard fired one chef because he could not make his pastries rise straight. But Olga V came to realize that such extravagant standards made the other chefs feel they were working for the best kitchen in the world. This part right there that they feel they're working for the best kitchen in the world. This will be part of the culture as his future company. And he says, he's like, I don't want to be the biggest agency. I want to be the best. And the people there talk about they felt they were on a mission. They were not mercenaries. They were missionaries. It's very interesting. Working in a great French kitchen was first step in Ogrevie's education. Petard's management style became his model for hard work, discipline, and excellence. I remember my first day there.”

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11. “Where he goes off and he starts to develop his own personal curriculum through reading and through life experiences. And he says, whatever Ogavi achieved in his career does not appear to be the product of formal schooling. He felt his life at school had been a failure and he wanted to start fresh. His education was about to begin and this is where he has for the next, let's see, 17 years or so, a series of very odd jobs that all help. He takes all the lessons that he learns from these series of odd jobs. And when he has the ability to build his own company and to build the culture of Ogovi and Mather, he uses these lessons as a foundation for that, okay? So it says many people who succeed in advertising lack college degrees. Instead of conventional credentials, they learn from one or more eclectic life experiences. That would be a pattern of Vulgar V's education, starting with a seminal experience in a French kitchen. So he's in Paris. It says where he observed and was taught high standards of leadership.”

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12. “Off the top of my head, I'm pretty sure it's MIT. He's like, You guys are doing it wrong. He's like, no, yeah, I think it was MIT. It doesn't matter, but he says, by the time the undergraduates graduate college, right? He's like, they have no capacity for greatness anymore. It's been, you've beaten out of them. Their desire, their belief, their self-belief that they can actually be great, that they can actually produce unique work is beat out of them. And then, you know, all the way back 50 years ago, whatever, 70 years ago, he talks about you should record the greatest. It's really interesting what it's kind of like what podcasts are now, right? Or any other learning. I guess YouTube is very similar where it's like, why are we having teachers give up, give the same lecture year in and year out? Why don't we take the very best lectures from the very best teachers in the world, record them? Then you can access anytime you want and then go about spend all your time actually doing work, which was just really interesting. And I hope.”

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13. “Truly interested in, but I'm not finished with this speech. This is classic David. So he goes back to his school to give a speech only to tell them that they did it wrong. So he says, Olgovi has also proposed revamping the entire theory and practice of instruction. The masters have to cram you full of facts so that you pass those odious examinations. That is like cramming corn down the throat of a goose to enlarge its liver. It may produce excellent fau- but it does the goose no permanent good. The mission of a great school is to not cram you with facts so that you can regurgitate them a few weeks later in an exam, even though they still do this today, right? It is to inspire you with a taste for scholarship, which will last you all your life. So what are he saying? It's to teach you to love learning. It's really funny. Edwin Land does the same thing, founder of Polar. I've read what, five books on him for the podcast in almost every single book. It talks about he goes back to, I think, MIT. I can't remember the school.”

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14. “Keep you here for almost nothing. What right has the son of a pauper to spend money on luxuries like peaches? Now, this is funny though. This is, remember, David, he builds himself into a very formidable person. Okay, I'm a kid. I don't have control of this. I'm poor. He comes back and gives a speech at his former. He's in high school at this point. I don't know if I said that or not. So then he comes back, I think it's like 20, 30 years later, probably maybe 40 years later. And he gives a speech at his former high school. He says he took the occasion to remind everyone that he was not a big shot at school. I wasn't a scholar. I detested the Philistines who ruled the roost. I was an irreconcilable rebel. I was a misfit. I love that he used that word. In short, I was a dud. There is no correlation between success at school and success at life. So you're saying I was a really crappy school student who winds up dropping out of college. Same thing, but then he develops his personal curriculum and that he truly excels. He just, he cannot get enough information about things that are”

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15. “Although Ogovi adored his father and thought of him a great gentleman, he recognized he was a scholar and not a businessman. He saw his grandfather as the exact opposite. Now remember, he's already told us my grandfather's my hero. That's who I'm powdering myself after. So this description of his grandfather is very important. He was as hard as nails and a very successful businessman. I couldn't make out whether I was going to be like my father or my grandfather. When fathers fail, their children are often driven to be successful. The son would always be motivated to achieve and obsess with money. That's another thing to understand. Olgavi, he's very upfront about this, that once he tasted his first bit of tiny bit of the ability to make money and make large amounts very rapidly, he was obsessed. We're not there yet. We're still in his early life. So his father doesn't have a lot of money. He goes to these private schools, but he goes there online.”

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16. “Credo, I've already talked about that, so he took ideas. His grandfather said, hey, study JP Morgan. Olga V listened, and then he took those two ideas and applied it to his business. Very smart man. Now, why is his grandfather, his hero and not his father? His father loses all his money in the stock market. So they were a rather financially successful family. His father was not as financially successful as his grandfather, but he was a speculator. He was a stockbroker, but he wound up losing all his money. And so this is where David compares his father and his grandfather. He's going to tell us a lot about what he values. But from then on, they lived in genteel poverty. We were a poor family, said Olgarvy. My father's total income was less than $1,000 a year. His grandfather turned down an appearance. This is a crazy sentence. And his father tried to commit suicide by cutting his throat.”

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17. “This and then I won't run over my point. So, this is what his grandfather is telling David, right? Study the form JPMorgan. And he says, pointing to the Morgan's criteria for partners. Gentlemen with brains and clients, only first-class business, and that in a first-class way. Both later became part of Olga V's agency's credo. So he took those two, his grandfather said, hey, study J.P. Morgan. Really, we know because there was what? Two, they've done two podcasts on JPMorgan. One was the hour of fate, which is the beef he has with Teddy Roosevelt, and then one was The House of Morgan, which is like the most famous biography of the Morgan family. Anyways, we know that didn't come from JP Morgan. That actually came from his father, Junius. I think I said on that podcast, but I think studying Junius, I couldn't find any of the biographies on him. I found him to be more impressive, the father, than the son J.P. Morgan. So it says both later became part of Ogovi's agency.”

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18. “Group of Scottish investors. When the farm failed, Grandfather Olgovy, out of work with a large family to support, tried prospecting for gold in New Zealand. That's what they mean about he's an adventurer. When that failed, he returned to London, where he got a job as a secretary in the English Bank of Rio de Janeiro. Four year this is now Olga talking about his grandfather. Four years later, this uneducated sheep farmer became manager of Brown Shipley, where he trained the future governor of the Bank of England. He was able to send all seven of his children to private schools and universities and live like an aristocrat. That's definitely something David emulates later in life. He buys a castle. He cannot afford a castle. He bought a castle in France, and that's where he spends, I think, the last two decade of his life. Oh, I love this guy. The banking experience led him to advise his grandson to study the firm of J.P. Morgan, pointing to the Morgan criteria for partners, which, as we know, let me finish reading.”

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19. “So it was sold for almost a billion dollars in the 80s, right? And he didn't start his company till he was 38. And I think he had a total of $5,000 in savings. That's his life savings at that point. It's just remarkable how, and a lot of what I'll talk to you about today is how he used his wide variety of life experiences before he was a founder to accelerate the success because he rattles off in a decade, decade and a half, one of the best records in advertising history is remarkable. So let me go back to his early life, though, because I want to talk about his grandfather. It's very interesting because this informs the life of David Olgravey. Remember, I call him his blueprint, right? So it says Olgarvy admired Olgovy's admired grandfather, was a sheep farmer by trade, but an adventurer at heart. Born in Scotland, he moved to London, and at twenty four he emigrated to South America where he led a swashbuckling life and also fought in the Argentine War. He managed a farm for”

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20. “This is, I think, after he's probably 56 years old when he's reading another book. And this book might be interesting. Maybe I'll cover it in a future episode. But it's really interesting. He's talking about the lessons he learned. So he says, I don't know anything about finance, but I just read the biography of Lord Roy Thompson. The Canadian who went to Britain when he was about 60 and proceeded to make a huge fortune. He did it by always borrowing every penny he could lay his hands on, buying newspapers, and then managing them more profitably than previous owners. This is a classic way to get rich. Of course, a lot of people who play this game go broke. It is frightfully dangerous. I doubt if we should take such risks with our stockholders' money, but if we did, we might get rich. So it's obviously joking a little bit there, but he's also telling you what he learned. And this is after his company went public. So there's two things.”

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21. “Did not sell. Considering that that book sold like crazy. So it says as successful as Ogrevy's other books would be, he admitted this one was a bus. He said he knew the reason. When you write a book about advertising, you're competing with midgets. When you write an autobiography, you're competing with giants. And right there, that's one of the things I love the most about David Ogre, the amount of information he's able to convey in such short. Those are two sentences, and it tells entire stories. Later in the book,”

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22. “Reading and that nothing can actually substitute for it. So it says a zealous student of the business, Ogovi claimed that he had read every book about advertising. And this is an important part, and disdained others who felt they didn't need this knowledge. So in other books, he doesn't mince words about this. He says, if you're failing to study the history of your profession, if you're not reading as much as possible, he calls you an ignorant amateur. There were piles of books all over his house. This is really interesting. What is he reading though, right? Most about successful leaders in business and government. He was interested in how they use their leadership, how they made their money. He was interested in people, people who had accomplished remarkable things. So what are they telling us? He read a lot of biographies. He's not very different than you and I. That's the entire thesis behind founders, right? This is really fascinating. I didn't know. I don't know how I missed this, and I'm going to have to atone for my sins. But he actually wrote an autobiography. I don't know, again, I.”

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23. “World War two had been over for only three years when thirty nine year old David Ogilvy, an English immigrant with almost no experience in advertising, opened up shop in nineteen forty eight. Although his offices were on Madison Avenue, the rulers of the realm at that time had no reason to take notice of him. Within a few years Ogilvy was counted as one of them”

    2021-03-01 · Founders · #169 David Ogilvy (The King of Madison Avenue) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source