Frank Bettgers bestselling book from 1947 “How I Raised Myself From Failure To Success In selling came about after three significant milestones in Frank Bettgers life.
Bettger’s baseball career ending injury and his resettling in his hometown Philidelphia.
Frank made desperate attempts at earning a living for his growing family first as a bicycle riding bill collector and then as a failing insurance salesman. At one point in his struggles while coaching baseball at Swathmore College (a part time job) he was invited to make a public speech he new that like most non public speakers that he was not prepared. Frank went down to the Philadelphia YMCA to get help in preparing for the upcoming speech. He was introduced to Dale Carnegie who was teaching an early version of his now famous public speaking class.
Bettger relearned in that public speaking class an old lesson he learned in baseball about the value of enthusiasm. He went on to make about 40,000 sales calls and earn enough to have retired at age 42 if he had chosen. In fact he purchased a $70,000 estate which based
on the annual inflation over this period of 3.83% would translate to a $1000,000 into days money. This he accomplished over the twelve years from about 1917 to about 1930.
Years Later Bettger happened to get on the same train as Dale Carnegie who said to him “Frank, I have been giving a series of one week schools sponsored by the United States Junior Chamber Of Commerce (JayCees). Why don’t you come along with me and give some talks on selling. They went on to teach the courses called “leadership training, Human Relations and Salesmanship”.
Later Dale Carnegie convinced Bettger to write the book because as Carnegie said many of the books on salesmanship are written by people who never did any selling at all. Dales idea was for Frank to write a new kind of book on selling telling precisely what he did to achieve the success he had experienced. Frank wrote the book telling the story of his own life. He told how as a poor boy in Philadelphia he sold papers on the street after dropping of school in the sixth grade. He told of his struggles of his eight years in baseball and how one idea multiplied his income many times over and how he later applied that baseball lesson to selling. How he learned that planning and organization were the keys to productivity. The book is entertaining since the illustrations are from Franks real life in baseball and the world of selling.
The reader can identify with Franks stumbles failures sand triumphs because one knows that these are real not some half baked theory.
the reader can clearly see that if he applies Bettgers methods for winning people’s confidence thru reason and honesty
