Once a man brought me from a great technical school their course in advertising, and asked me how to improve it. When I read it I said: “Burn it. You have no right to occupy a young man’s most impressive years, most precious years, with rot like that. If he spends four years to learn such theories, he will spend a dozen years to unlearn them. Then he will be so far behind in the race that he will never attempt to catch up.” (Location 149)
Another man came to Chicago from Manitowoc, Wisconsin. He ate breakfast at a Thompson restaurant. He found there a baked apple which reminded him of his home. He said to himself, “There are thousands of men who come, as I do, from the country to Chicago. Two-thirds of the city consists of them. I should tell them about those baked apples.” He wrote up a page ad. on baked apples and submitted it to John R. Thompson. Mr. Thompson agreed to run it, and the patronage of his restaurants increased at once. That was the beginning of an advertising campaign which multiplied the patronage of the Thompson lunch rooms and made their owner many times a millionaire. (Location 323)
“We are bankrupt. We owe $115,000, more than we can pay. This announcement will bring our creditors down on our necks. But if you come and buy tomorrow we shall have the money to meet them. If not, we go to the wall. These are the prices we are quoting to meet this situation:” (Location 479)
Not then, or ever since, have I asked a purchase. That is useless. I have simply offered service. I (Location 506)
offered a privilege, not an inducement. I appeared as a benefactor, not as a salesman. So dealers responded in a way that sold our stock of 2.50,000 sweepers in three weeks. Let (Location 527)
They did not urge dealers to buy the sweepers. They offered the privilege of buying. Three vermilion wood sweepers would come in each dozen if orders were sent at once. The dealer could sell them at any price he chose. But never again could he obtain Bissell sweepers built in vermilion wood. The only condition was that the dealer must sign the agreement inclosed. He had to display the sweepers until sold, had to display the cards we sent him, and had to inclose our vermilion pamphlet in every package which left his store for three weeks. Thus again I placed the dealer in position where he was soliciting us. The (Location 561)
Study salesmen, canvassers, and fakers if you want to know how to sell goods. (Location 708)
No argument in the world can ever compare with one dramatic demonstration. (Location 709)
The way to sell goods is to sell them. The way to do that is to sample and demonstrate, and the more attractive you can make your demonstration the better it will be for you. (Location 712)
but the men who know what arouses enthusiasm in simple people. (Location 714)
While with Swift & Company I wrote an article on patent-medicine advertising. It reached the attention of Dr. Shoop in Racine, Wisconsin. He was selling medicines (Location 849)
In advertising and merchandising, that is something always to consider. One must outbid all others in some way. He must offer advantages in qualities, service, or terms, or he must create a seeming advantage by citing facts which others fail to cite. Crying a name or brand is not sufficient. Urging people to buy from you instead of others goes against the grain. One must know his competition, know what others offer, know what people want. Until one feels sure that the advantages are strongly on his side, it is folly to risk a battle. One cannot long fool people who are carefully spending money. Never pay the price to get them unless you see clearly how you can keep them. Don’t under-estimate the intelligence and the information of people who count their pennies. (Location 874)
Tell factors and features which others deem too commonplace to claim. Your product will come to typify those excellencies. (Location 917)
Every move that led upward, or to greater happiness or content, has been fought by every friend I had. Perhaps because they were selfish and wanted me to stay with them. (Location 1006)
Every great move I have made in life has been ridiculed and opposed by my friends. (Location 1009)
Argue anything for your own advantage, and people will resist to the limit. But seem unselfishly to consider your customers’ desires, and they will naturally flock to you. (Location 1095)
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. (Location 1099)
Then in new cities which we tried to capture we offered a secret gift. We offered to mail the housewife a present if she sent us the labels from six Van Camp cans. Or we piled wrapped presents in the grocers’ store windows, without telling what they were. Any woman could get one by buying six cans of Van Camp’s. (Location 1166)
Describe a gift, and some will decide that they want it, more will decide that they don’t. But everybody wants a secret gift. (Location 1169)
There are things to consider in such an offer. The gift must not be disappointing. It should be somewhat better than women are led to expect. Then the offer must be treated in a rather insidious way. (Location 1170)
Salesmanship-in-print is exactly the same as salesmanship-in-person. Style is a handicap. Anything that takes attention from the subject reduces the impression. One may say: “That is a beautiful ad. The pictures are perfect, the presentation is wonderful.” But that very idea prohibits^one from being influenced by the ad. It indicates lack of sincerity. It suggests an effort to sell. And we are all on our guard when somebody, apparently, is trying to get our money away. (Location 1319)
“advisory board” over which I presided. We announced that anyone could bring there advertising problems, in person or by letter, and receive without obligation the advice of the best men in our agency. (Location 1407)
Under the same policy we published numerous books offering advice based on our many experiences. We felt that our own interests depended on the prosperity of advertising as a whole. (Location 1413)
Note: Could i use this effectively as a prrdict - an “advisory board” followed by iknformaarin products on the backend based on what i learn?
This plan has many advantages over a “free” offer. It is much more impressive, for one thing. There is considerable difference in the psychological effect when you offer to buy an article for a woman to try, and pay the dealer his price for it, as compared with offering that article free to all. The “free” offer cheapens a product. There is a certain resistance when we ask people to afterward pay for a product which came to them first as a gift. But when we ourselves buy the article, just as the consumer does, we show supreme confidence in the belief that the article will please. “We Will Buy” is a much better headline than “10-Cent Cake Free.” (Location 1433)
After this experience, I can cite a hundred ways to advertise a tooth paste wrongly. And I can prove the mistakes. But a hundred men might follow each to the rocks if they had no gauge on results. A hundred men have done so. So Pepsodent offers the best argument I know for being guided by actual data. (Location 1669)
That is the hardest fact for an ad.-writer to learn or an advertiser to comprehend. The natural instinct is to make the ad. attractive. One must remember, however, ads. are not written to amuse, but to sell. And to sell at the lowest cost possible. Mail-order advertising, based on accurate figures on cost and result, shows the best ways known to do that. An advertiser who once came (Location 1686)
All experience in advertising proves that people will do little to prevent troubles. They do not cross bridges in advance. They will do anything to cure troubles which exist, but legitimate advertising has little scope there. All are seeking advantages, improvements, new ways to satisfy desires. (Location 1968)
The man who wins out and survives does so only because of superior science and strategy. He must know more, must be better grounded, must be shrewder than his rivals. The only way to that end is to start with fixed principles, proved by decades of experience, from which you never swerve. (Location 1999)
gradually came to specialize on proprietaries and foods, on products which people buy over and over. They offer the great opportunities in advertising. One-sale articles are not so inviting. The profit must be made on that sale. Articles of that kind appeal to the minority. The advertising man’s great profits come from products which appeal to nearly every home, and which must be advertised forever. (Location 2031)
