Truthful Advertising: Napoleon Hill’s Secret Strategies That Still Work 100 Years Later | #Marketing - Ep 51

This episode is brought to you by Progressive Commercial Insurance.

Business owners meet Progressive Insurance.

They make it easy to get discounts on commercial auto insurance and find coverages to grow with your business.

Quote in as little as six minutes at progressivecommercial.com.

Progressive Casualty Insurance Company, coverage provided and serviced by affiliated and third-party insurers.

Discounts and coverage selections not available in all states or situations.

This is the Russell Brunson Show.

If I went to the black market, I could probably sell this, I think, pretty easily for you know a couple hundred thousand dollars.

This is something that is insane that even exists, and this is the only copy on the planet that exists.

A lot of you guys know Napoleon Hill, who is probably my favorite author.

I've got the most Napoleon Hill stuff.

I'm in my Napoleon Hill room with all his collectibles.

But what's crazy that most people don't know is 20 years before Napoleon Hill wrote Think and Grow Rich, he actually taught an entire advertising course at a college.

And this is the manuscripts from his advertising course.

These were like the lesson manuals that he would have handed out during school back then.

The George Washington Institute, founded by Napoleon Hill in Chicago, copyright in 1917.

So literally 20 years before Napoleon Hill wrote the book Think and Grow Rich, he was teaching and studying and doing advertising.

In fact, a lot of people know Napoleon Hill is actually a copywriter first.

He was writing sales letters.

He was writing marketing campaigns.

In fact, a crazy fun fact, my first mentor, Dan Kennedy and Napoleon Hill both worked for the same company, writing copy, way different generations, but the same industry.

So a lot of people think, like, how do you write a book that sells 100 million copies like Think and Grow Rich?

Well, you do it by first becoming a really, really good advertiser, learning how to advertise and write promotions and campaigns and all sorts of stuff like that.

So this right here, this book set is insane because it's the original manuscripts from him teaching the college university.

The only place I've ever seen him actually teaching advertising.

When I first got this, we started reading through him and it's just insane to see the way his brain worked way back then.

It's funny now because you're like, how did he sell so many copies of books?

How is he still relevant, you know, 40, 50 years after he died?

It's because he knew how to advertise.

He knew how to get his message out there.

And the principles that he taught in here are so fundamental and amazing that I'm excited to share some of you guys today.

Luckily for me, I didn't actually have to pay for this.

We have a really cool partnership with the Napoleon Hill Foundation.

A little while ago, I donated a half million dollars to them to help with the initiative they had.

And then since then, they keep sending me really cool things.

Like, for example, Napoleon Hill's actual typewriters behind me, a bunch of other different books.

And one of the shipments came out and it was this.

And I was like, what is this?

And they're like, it's Napoleon Hill's advertising course.

I'm like Napoleon Hill taught an advertising course like this is insane I'm like when I looked it up 1917 I'm like literally 20 years before thinking grow rich he was teaching advertising and so this is something that it's priceless this is the only copy if I went to the black market I could probably sell this I think pretty easily for you know a couple hundred thousand dollars and right now it's locked away and safe except for right now there is controversy behind Napoleon Hill it's just like anything when you have someone who's out there there are haters that come out but it's fascinating because we actually had Napoleon Hill's grandson come out we spent like an entire day day filming the entire timeline, going through like Napoleon Hill's claims and what was true and like refuting all the different things that people said against him.

But it's interesting because if you look at his life, he got this commission from Andrew Carnegie to go and like spend 20 years to go interview the most amazing people in the world and then write this philosophy on personal achievement.

That was his whole mission was to do that.

He'd go out there and he'd start doing some things.

He wasn't getting paid by Carnegie, so he's freelancing.

He's trying to make some money.

He starts having success.

He wrote this book, Laws of Success.

He made a whole bunch of money and then depression hit and he lost it all.

And then, you know, next thing happens, he starts going through his life.

He writes Thinking and Go Rich, makes a bunch of money, and then his wife leaves him and then it crashes again.

Like this pattern kept happening throughout his life.

But then also, if you think about this, he was living like early 1900s.

This is before most of like the advertising laws were even in effect.

So a lot of times he would do stuff that was legal at the time and then the government would change the laws and then he would get hit for it.

So it's multiple times where he ran into problems with the government.

In fact, one of them was this college he set up.

He set this college teaching advertising and it was very successful.

But then he had this idea.

Like, what if I let the students go and and sell access to the course and then it'll get more people in?

And so he created this whole like multi-level marketing thing, had people out there.

Students are selling more people into it.

It's having more and more success.

And the government comes in, like, you can't actually do that.

And you think about it, back then, 1900, like they didn't have the internet.

They couldn't look at case law.

They were just pushing the boundaries of stuff.

And you don't find out about what's legal or not legal until someone comes to you.

You know what I mean?

Like, it was such a different period of time.

And so, but it's interesting because if you look at all of the critics, you look at the things that they bring up, like, there's very good explanations for every single thing along the line.

You know, and all of a sudden, Napoleon Hill is human, just like me and just like you.

I make mistakes.

I'm sure in 200 years from now, people write stories about the dumb stuff I've done and the mistakes that I made, but the reality is like we're all making these mistakes.

It's fascinating.

You look at Tony Robbins, like 20 years ago, Tony Robbins was on infomercial saying all sorts of stuff.

The FTC came and hit him, but he's still Tony Robbins.

He still, he transitioned from that and he's become Tony Robbins.

Trump, whether you love him or you hate him, like FTC came and shut down Trump University because they were making claims at the time, right?

And he was able to evolve past that.

So sometimes we're looking at someone's life as someone who's passed away and judging them based on like our standards of today.

This happened when he was, you know, 30 years old.

He lived to be 80.

Like, so there's a whole lifetime he lived after that to fix the things he did that were wrong, to make things right.

I think one of the last claims that people always say is like, he died broke.

And that's not true.

If you look at like when he died, he was at the peak of his success.

Anyway, so it's just kind of an interesting watching the critics, but the reality is there's a grain of truth, but then when you hear the whole story, it's not the same outcome.

I'm obsessed with this right now.

And we're literally like republishing this book over at truthfuladvertising.com in the near future.

The reason why I'm doing this right now is because this book isn't just advertising.

You may think like, oh, well, he's teaching advertising back in the 1900s.

But what's interesting is a couple things.

Number one is most of this course, Napoleon Hill, again, he was obsessed with personal development.

You look at most of his life work was laws of success, think and grow rich, outwitting the devil, like these other books about success.

And so when you look at like the lens of the way he taught the advertising course, most of this curriculum was actually him trying to develop the advertiser, which is I've never seen before, right?

People talk about advertising and figuring out better hooks and headlines and stories.

And he does go into that, but the bigger part is like, you as an advertiser, how do you become the person who can actually have the confidence enough in themselves and their writing abilities to be able to write a sales letter, right?

How do you develop yourself?

And so he's weaving in all these personal development things into a person to help them become the person who's able to do it, right?

And I see this all the time.

I see this in people coming to my world.

They want to build funnels.

They want to do whatever.

And they're trying to learn the skill set or the tactic, right?

What they don't understand is the thing that they're missing is who they have to become to be able to be good at that, right?

If you want to be an expert and be on stage speaking, that's awesome.

I can give you some tactics how to speak on stage but you have to go and like you have to earn your expertise you have to go out there and do it over and over you have to become somebody to be able to be the person who can stand on stage and carry an audience and hold an audience and I think that's what people are always missing

you are where you are and what you are because of your mental attitude in which you relate yourself to other people remember also your mental attitude is the one and the only thing over which you have complete control what's fascinating is just watching him focus all his effort on like developing the advertiser and then from that it's like now we can actually talk about and get into the tactics and the strategy of advertising.

I think that's one of the most fascinating things about this book and why I love it so much.

You know you're running Facebook ads or YouTube like whatever you're doing like your belief in what you are doing yourself is the key like it comes through on the camera it comes through when you're speaking comes through when you're writing copy like whatever you're doing it comes through and so it's like how do you develop that belief first in yourself and then from there now we can get into all the tactics of like creating great advertising one of the actual advertising principles that Napoleon Hill spends a lot of time in here that one of my favorites is back then they didn't have video or YouTube or radio.

The method of advertising was written copy.

So it was magazine ads.

It was sales letters.

Like that was how they communicated, right?

And so all communication came through some type of print.

And so what he's talking about in here is as you are learning how to write, he said, there's two things.

Number one, you have to get their attention.

So you have to have a good hook.

Like we talk about this all my books, like hook story off, grab their attention initially, tell them a story, and then make them an offer.

And Napoleon Hill was saying, you got to grab their attention first.

And then Athe said, you got to persuade them.

But the way you persuade someone, this is what the key thing he brought in, is you have to help them to visualize the outcome of what the product or the service you're selling is.

Like how do you create that vision?

And you do that through the written word, obviously.

And I remember when I read this, it reminded me of, man, 18 years ago.

If you guys remember Robert Allen, who wrote No Money Down, he was the real estate guru back in the day.

I remember I was funnel hacking him before funnel hacking was a word, but I was going through his whole process.

Like, what is he doing?

How's he doing?

How's he built this huge brand?

And I remember going through it.

And back then, he had these, you'd buy one of these friend-in-books and he'd invite you to a teleseminar.

you'd jump on a teleseminar and what was so fascinating that Robert Allen was doing that's based on these principles from Napoleon Hill is he would have everyone sit down and create in their mind a vivid vision that's what he called it and you'd sit down and say okay I want you to visualize the home you have now after you see the home like what does it look like what does it smell like when you walk through the door like like you have kids you have dogs like what's and like he goes through this whole it's like a 20 or 30 minute experience where he's creating a vivid vision in your mind he calls that he's like we're creating your vivid vision and so he goes through this whole process and by the time that you're done off this call like you know what you want you desire this thing so much.

And then he comes back and like, okay, now to make this vision a reality, invest in my real estate coaching.

I'll help you like sell real estate so you can have it.

But he creates the vision first, right?

And that's what Napoleon's talking about in this book is like, you got to get your customer, after you grab their attention, then you have to help them to visualize the outcome, not the process.

A lot of times we get in the mistake of trying to sell the process.

Like I'm selling the course or I'm selling, you know, here's my step-by-step coaching program.

Here's like, we keep selling the process versus helping people visualize the outcome.

Alex Shiramose spoke at one of our events one time and he shared a really good principle.

He talked about like, if you were a travel agent, the thing that you're selling is you're selling Hawaii, right?

You're selling Hawaii.

It's going to be beautiful.

You're going to be on the beach.

You're visualizing the outcome.

You're selling the outcome, right?

You're not selling all the stuff that happens between now and you getting to Hawaii because that stuff's a nightmare, right?

You got to get tickets and you get hotels and you got to like get on the plane and you're probably going to be sitting like on the back row with your kids and like carrying your bags and the pain of it.

And then you have four layovers because you're from Boise and there's no direct flights to Hawaii.

And then when you do get there, you got to come off and you got to sit through customs and it's going to be hot and sweaty and like, you know, all this stuff.

Like you don't talk about all all those things you just paint the vision of the outcome and then people buy and then they'll figure out all the rest they'll go through all the pain because the vision of the outcome and so the key thing from Napoleon here here after you like learn how to become the advertisers you believe in the number two is like we're gonna grab their attention then we got to help them to visualize the outcome right and then he teaches you inside here like in the written word like how what do you say and how do you say it so that people feel this and again for me it just comes back to Robert Allen listening on that call of him explaining the vivid vision so think about for your audience could be you on a webinar it could be you, you know, speaking on a YouTube video, could be you writing a sales letter, whatever version of selling you have.

Like, how do you help your audience see the vivid vision?

Where they're literally, it's like so tangible, they can smell it, they can taste it, they can touch it, because then the selling of the product is easy, right?

Oh, yeah,

flights to Hawaii is this much money, right?

That part becomes really easy when you've actually helped them visualize the outcome successfully.

You see people on YouTube, Instagram, podcasts, like they're all trying to give value, and they're dropping these ideas and stuff.

But what's interesting is that most of the things that people are sharing are very tactical, right?

Oh, do this thing on Instagram.

You increase your views by 5%.

Do this thing.

And so like, they're all leveraging like the tactic or the hack of the day, right?

The thing with tactics is they disappear and they shift and they change.

I've been in this business now for almost, I think, 25 years.

And in 25 years, I've been in this business, I've seen all the gurus who come and gone and come.

And the reason why is because they write a trend.

Like, oh my gosh, there's this trend.

Instagram reels are the thing.

They become the guru of that.

They talk about it, they share it.

And then like that.

thing changes it shifts and then they fall apart and then they can't figure out the next part of business and they disappear you know and i look at like why is Napoleon Hill stuff still relevant?

Like, why am I studying the old books and advertising?

Russell, you have access to anybody you want.

Why would you study Napoleon Hill, Robert Collier, these people?

These people, when they were writing this stuff, they didn't have the ability where they could just throw up free stuff onto Instagram or Facebook or YouTube and hopefully get traffic or get money, right?

They had to test everything with their own dollar.

So if they're writing a sales letter, they got to write it, they got to go get printed, they got to go like fold it and put it in an envelope, they got to lick a stamp and put it on it and send it out and hope it makes money.

So they're not just like throwing stuff out there, they're thinking through it and the strategy and understanding, right?

And there's this whole philosophy and strategy that was built in the early 1900s by these advertisers that was based not on ideas or hoping stuff work or based on like i just spent my last thousand dollars do i get it back next week right if they did like cool what did i do how do i double down on that and like they just thought through things differently and these are the the core strategies that don't shift they don't change they don't move when the algorithm changes right they're like the core fun foundational things and so while it's great to like go study the fastest tactic what's happening you know like whatever it you know that's working today it's so much better to understand the core fundamentals the reason why i have been in this business now for 25 years uh number one is like i had a bunch of mentors teaching internet marketing right i was going after like the shiny object of the day but dan kennedy was my first real mentor and when dan came in he was like teaching me about how they did marketing with fax machines and direct mail and i'm like i'm like a fax machine right i'm like how does this work but he was teaching me the strategies that work regardless and so when Google did the first Google slap, it hurt my business because the traffic I was using from that shifted, but it didn't kill my business I just shifted like I knew the strategy as I moved different platform right and when PPC shifted and then when MySpace shut us down and we shifted to Facebook and Instagram and Google and like the ups and the downs like when you understand the strategy it was what gives you longevity in this business too many people so many people like hundreds and hundreds of people that I know who have came in learned a tactic capitalized on it made some money and they disappear because they don't understand the foundational strategies to actually make it work and when you understand that and you study it and you learn it and you master it it makes you bulletproof right it makes it so you will be here in the the long term and again 25 years i've been doing this the number of people who who are in this business that i started right now i can count them on one hand so it's very rare because everyone's going after the tactics versus like really understanding and mastering the strategy i have my notes i think i'm the only person on planet who's gone through this entire thing i have my notes and my noodles everything i learned from here before we publish this this book i don't think is live yet depending on when you're watching this but this book's not live yet but if you want to get my notes from everything there'll be linked down in the description click on that take you to a page you can download my notes and then eventually when the book comes live we'll notify you from that page and let you guys know if you want to get a copy and read these original manuscripts for the first time ever.

And if you want to really understand and master the strategy of advertising, this is the first place to start because not only is it teaches strategy, it's going to develop you as the advertiser.

It can help you to become the person you need to be to actually have success in this game.