The Seven Lost Secrets of Success

Million Dollar Ideas of Bruce Barton, America's Forgotten Genius

Joe Vitale

• Publisher: Wiley
• Year: 2011
• ISBN:
  9781118039144
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Sales
• Index: Business

Praise for The Seven Lost Secretsof Success "Buy this book, apply these secrets, and your prosperity will be assured."
-Dan McComas, President, Dan McComas Associates,
Marketing & Management Consultants "This breakthrough book, based on the ideas of a forgotten genius, will help smart marketers increase their effectiveness a minimum of fivefold."
-Bruce David, publisher of Starting Smart "The principles are sound and sensible and guaranteed to help any businessperson make more money. Since 99.9 percent of businesses don't use them, anyone putting the seven lost secrets to work will gain an unbelievable edge over the competition."
-Bob Bly, author of eighteen business books, including Selling
Your Services "One of the most revealing works ever-I literally couldn't put it down. There are life and business success lessons in each chapter."
-Jim Chandler, President, VistaTron "Barton was the messiah of business who helped America pull out of the Great Depression. Now he can help all of us survive the current recession."
-Scott Hammaker, CEO, Nashville Party Connection "An excellent guide to better advertising, better promotions, and better marketing. My copywriting abilities and creative strategies have been strengthened and broadened. I'm awed and inspired."
-Tina Nokes, owner, A-Plus Resume Service "A passionate book on the timeless, inspiring, perceptive, forceful, and sincere ideas of Bruce Barton-a man nobody really knew, a genius lost in history."
-Jim King, CPA, Houston "These proven principles are the foundation upon which to build a prosperous enterprise."
-Mark Weisser, CEO, Gulf Coast Security Systems

SECRET #1: REVEAL THE BUSINESS NOBODY KNOWS

“In the long run no individual prospers beyond the measure of his faith.”

—Bruce Barton, 1921

A NATION OF STEEL

Bruce Barton dug deep to find out how a business served a global need or contributed to the growth of the country.

When he and Roy Durstine landed the United States Steel Corporation account in 1935, Barton helped whip up an ad that made history. He said Andrew Carnegie “came to a land of wooden towns . . . and left a nation of steel.”

This type of strategy changed the perspective of everyone. People were no longer buying a product called steel; they were supporting a mission to improve the lifestyle of a nation.

How does your business serve life? How do you contribute to the improvement of lives?

You have to look past the obvious. You may be running a hamburger stand. But are you just selling burgers? Aren’t you doing something more—maybe keeping people alive and healthy so they can enjoy their lives more and be happier?

HOW YOU CAN LIVE FOREVER

I sometimes help people write books. But books aren’t my only product. I am in the business of giving immortality.

Let me explain.

A book is a way for you to live forever. When you write a book, you put yourself in that book. And you also create something that will live beyond you. Just look at the man we are talking about: Bruce Barton. He died in 1967. But his writings have touched me (and now you) from beyond the grave.

Barton used this tactic to help him write his most famous book.

The Man Nobody Knows made Jesus vibrant for millions of people. Most people thought (and still think) of Jesus as a mild type of savior. But Barton said Jesus was physically strong from being a carpenter, healthy from walking in the open air every day, popular because He was invited to parties and attracted little kids, and a wise leader because He took 12 unknown men (fishermen!) and made them salespeople for His organization—one that has spanned the globe and touched millions for thousands of years.

In 1920, Barton wrote of Jesus: “He was at a wedding party. The wine had given out. So He performed His first miracle. Just to save a hostess from embarrassment—and He thought it worth a miracle. Just to save a group of simple folk from having their hour of joy cut short—it was for such a cause, He thought, that His divine power had been entrusted to Him.”

Nobody ever told me that before! I now see Jesus with new eyes because of Barton’s explanation. Barton revealed the man I never knew.

THE ADVERTISING NOBODY KNOWS

Barton also used this strategy on his own profession.

When people complained that advertising was misleading or corrupt, he responded by “revealing the business nobody knows.”

The late John Caples, author and friend of Barton, once wrote in his diary that Barton “took the profession of advertising and told what wonders it is accomplishing in improving living standards—how it is forwarding the progress of the human race—how it is really a noble profession.”

Barton himself said, “If advertising is sometimes long-winded, so is the United States Senate. If advertising has flaws, so has marriage.”

Elsewhere Barton said, “As a profession advertising is young; as a force it is as old as the world. The first words uttered, ‘Let there be light,’ constitute its character. All nature is vibrant with its impulse.”

What Barton did was reframe the way people viewed his profession. And it worked. His agency became one of the largest in the world.

THE PRESIDENT NOBODY KNOWS

When Barton was named as a possible candidate for the U.S. presidency in 1932, he wrote an article for Cosmopolitan magazine that “revealed the President nobody knows.”

Most of us consider the president’s job to be high-risk, high-stress, high-profile—a controversial and demanding position. Not Barton. He said two of his first official acts would be to buy a horse and join two golf clubs.

“The President should never be tired or worried. He should be fresh, clear-minded, full of power and decision. Thus, when his two or three big opportunities arise, he will be prepared to speak the word or perform the act that will fire the imagination of the country.”

Barton went on to say that our presidents have never been very relaxed. He presented a new president—one nobody had ever imagined before—a president who was human.

Although Barton was not elected president, his unique campaign strategy made him more real—and more memorable and endearing—to thousands of people who never knew him.

WHAT PEOPLE REALLY WANT

The way to perform this first strategy of “revealing the business nobody knows” is to think of what people really want.

Cosmetic companies don’t sell lipstick; they sell romance (and sex). They know women want to love and be loved. Lipstick is a device to attain the desired end. To “reveal the business nobody knows,” a cosmetics firm would focus on the romance and sex derived from using its product.

People want: security, sex, power, immortality, wealth, happiness, safety, health, recognition, and love.

How do you (or your business) deliver any of those essential needs?

I mentioned a hamburger stand earlier. Instead of focusing solely on hamburgers, what if the owners started selling “health”? They could bill the business as the first hamburger stand that caters to your health. They could say, “Our burgers will give you energy and vitamins,” or something to that effect. They could “reveal the business nobody knows.”

Most people sell what they have in front of them. In other words, if you’re selling a shirt, you show the shirt. But a way to “reveal the shirt nobody knows” is to show how the shirt satisfies a more deep-seated desire. Maybe the shirt is made of special material that allows your skin to breathe, thereby giving you comfort. You have to look beyond the obvious.

Take baking soda. Arm & Hammer has us putting its product on our toothbrushes and in our refrigerators. They are clever people. They keep revealing other uses for baking soda. But Bruce Barton would have gone further and shown how baking soda serves the world. Had Barton handled the Arm & Hammer baking soda account, we’d be crop-dusting the planet with the stuff to clear the air of pollution.

When Bruce Barton was handed the U.S. Steel account, he could have written a relatively good ad that said, “U.S. Steel is the best in the business.”

Instead, Barton looked deeper. He wanted to reveal how the steel business served the more basic needs of people. As a result, he came up with the now-famous ad (listed in The 100 Greatest Advertisements of All Time): Andrew Carnegie “came to a land of wooden towns . . . and left a nation of steel.”

THE WAR NOBODY KNOWS

Barton hated war.

He lived through our country’s worst wars—from World War I right up to the Vietnam War. He knew it was a hopeless activity. “Nobody can win,” he said.

In 1932 he created a series of advertisements to “reveal the war nobody knows.” He wanted to drive home the costs and pains of war. He wanted to awaken people to the tragic reality of war. Barton knew that future wars would involve airplanes, big business, and even chemicals. And he wanted to stop it by advertising “this Hell!” One of his ads read:

SO THE LUSITANIA WENT DOWN

Well, what of it?

“What of it?” you cry. “The whole world was shocked. For days the newspapers talked of nothing else.”

Well, but what of it? After all, it was a little thing.

How many Lusitanias would have to go down to carry all the dead and missing soldiers and the dead civilians of the great World War?

One Lusitania a day.

For a year.

For 10 years.

For 25 years.

For 50 years.

One Lusitania a day for 70 years, or one a week, beginning nearly a century before the discovery of America by Columbus and continuing to the present hour.

That is the number of Lusitanias that would be required to carry the dead. The dead of all nations who died in the war.

That ad and four others were used as illustrations in an article by Barton in 1932 (before World War II) in American magazine. But they never ran as advertisements. And the country’s failure to listen to Bruce Barton’s pleas to “reveal the war nobody knows” allowed history to record further horrors. You can see the ads that never ran in the back of this book, beginning on page 173.

THE GASOLINE NOBODY KNOWS

At a 1925 talk to the American Petroleum Institute, Barton told his audience they weren’t selling gasoline at all.

“My friends, it is the juice of the fountain of eternal youth that you are selling. It is health. It is comfort. It is success. And you have sold it as a bad-smelling liquid at so many cents a gallon. You have never lifted it out of the category of a hated expense.”

Barton explained his shocking position with a story about Jacob, whose poor immigrant parents had no gasoline and therefore no respite from the dingy neighborhood where they lived under the shadow of ugly smokestacks.

“Not so with Jacob. He works in the smoke of the city to be sure, but he lives in the suburbs and has his own garden. His children are healthier; they go to better schools. On Sunday he packs up a picnic lunch and bundles the family into the car and has a glorious day in the woods or at the beach....

“And all this is made possible by a dollar’s worth of gasoline!”

THE BUSINESS NOBODY KNOWS

When big-league companies such as Sears or Hallmark Cards sponsor television programs (an idea created by Barton), they reveal themselves to be caring. “Brought to you by Hallmark” lets you know Hallmark is human—while also planting its name in your mind.

Barton began a book in 1928 designed to reveal business as a major force for positive change. Many people fear or flee business because they think it’s corrupt. Sometimes business is corrupt. But Barton saw business shaping society and helping it grow. Barton’s book was going to “reveal the business n...