The Art of Money Getting: Keep Your Word

In the last part of his lecture, Barnum, the greatest advertiser of his age, talks about running a business: focus, advertising, good manners and, above all, honesty.

“Do not scatter your powers. Choose one kind of business and stick to it until you succeed, or until experience shows that you should give it up.Constant hammering on one nail will drive it home at last. When your whole attention is on one thing, your mind keeps suggesting improvements that you would miss if it were busy with a dozen.Many a fortune has slipped through a man’s fingers because he had too many irons in the fire.

If you have a good article to sell, let people know about it. A man may have the best goods in the world, but if nobody knows, they will bring him nothing.But it must really be good. You may advertise something worthless and get people to buy it once, but they will call you a cheat, and your business will slowly die.A French writer said that a newspaper reader does not even notice an advertisement the first time; by the seventh time, he buys.When I brought the singer Jenny Lind to America, a hatter named Genin paid two hundred and twenty-five dollars at auction for the first ticket to her first concert.By the next morning his name was in newspapers across the country, and for six years he sold ten thousand extra hats a year; people came out of curiosity, found that his hats were good, and came back.

Be polite and kind to your customers. One of my ushers once wanted to beat a visitor who had insulted him. ‘Never mind,’ I told him, ‘he has paid for that, and I cannot afford to lose a customer.’

Above all, keep your integrity; it is more precious than diamonds. An old miser once told his sons, ‘Get money; get it honestly if you can, but get money.’Poor fool! He did not know that the hardest thing in the world is to make money dishonestly, and that our prisons are full of men who tried.A man known to be strictly honest may be very poor, yet the purses of the whole town are open to him, because everyone knows he will pay back what he borrows.To get rich is not always to succeed; there are many rich poor men. So make money honestly, and not otherwise.”