Frank Bettger’s best selling book of 1947 How I went from failure to sales success It was a bestseller for two reasons. First, he was involved in the baseball that he he related his lessons to the most popular entertainment in America in the pre-television post-World War II era. Baseball at the time had heroes like Ted Williams, Joe DiMaggio, Yogi Berra, Stan Musial, Jackie Robinson, and Warren Spahn. Bettger related his lessons to legends like Christy Matheson, Roger Bresnahan and Miller Huggins.

The second reason people liked the book was because it made success seem possible. The average person could relate to Frank Bettger’s stories and could see how these tips and techniques could be applied to their daily tasks and solve the problems they were facing that were holding them back. He had proof that the methods he recommended worked; they had taken a guy with a sixth-grade education and few skills from broke to rich. People in that postwar era were no different than people today in their desire to achieve the American dream of success and job satisfaction.

Bettger laid out step by step how to be successful by following the ideas to which he attributed his achievement. Some of the chapter titles hint at the secrets he revealed:

Chapter 1: How an idea multiplied my income and happiness

Chapter 5: How I Learned the Most Important Secret of Salesmanship

Chapter 10: How I Learned to Find the Most Important Reason a Man Should Buy

Chapter 11: The most important word I’ve ever come across in sales is only 3 letters

Chapter 16: The fastest way I’ve discovered to gain confidence

Chapter 23: The Biggest Reason Sellers Lose Business

Chapter 27: How I Learned to Outsmart Secretaries and Telephone Operators

Chapter 29: Letting Customers Help You Make a Sale

Chapter 30: How I Find New Clients and Make Old Ones Enthusiastic Boosters

Chapter 31: Seven Rules I Use to Close the Sale

With titles like that, what would-be salesperson could resist reading his book? Recommendations from Dale Carnegie and Dr. Norman Vincent Peale, famous in their own right for their teachings on success, also helped the book’s popularity. how i grew up from Failure to success in sale it quickly became a bestseller and was translated into nine foreign language editions and continues to sell very well today. All the sales trainers who came after climb on Bettger’s shoulders.