Welcome to Persuasion Reading List. This is the next part in a series of Executive Summary posts of the book My Life in Advertising. Find previous posts on this book here, and thanks for your visit.
In Chapter Two of My Life in Advertising, Hopkins writes about his childhood jobs. Hopkins learned the importance of a good product or good service. He cornered the flier delivery in his hometown by being the only boy to deliver to all of the homes on his routes. The other kids weren’t so thorough. Consistently great service attracts business.[tweetthis display_mode=”button_link”]Consistently great service attracts business. [/tweetthis]
Later, during his door-to-door sales work, Hopkins learned that selling with a demonstration or a sample made selling many times easier. Persuasion without a sample was far more effort. Samples, samples, samples! This is the cornerstone of his later career.
Another lesson: never judge humanity by ourselves, by our own desires. The higher we ascend in social class, the further we are from the majority of humanity. That’s not good to know what people want. It’s not good for an advertisement written to for the common person. Understanding human nature is key, but we cannot rely on our own. We must submit all things in advertising… to the court of public opinion (p. 24), Hopkins warns. We must constantly test and refine our persuasive appeals based on how they perform with the public.
[tweetthis]We must submit all things in advertising… to the court of public opinion. -CCHopkins[/tweetthis]
Hopkins ends this chapter saying that many young people feel overlooked in the workplace. This is because they don’t understand the monumental task ahead of them. The truth, says Hopkins, is that the volume of work to be done requires employees of great capacity. All who see the realities are anxious to find others who can see them. (p27)