The Power of Enthusiasm: Transforming Your Sales Approach
This is the first post in a series exploring key insights from Frank Bettger’s classic “|How I Raised Myself From Failure To Success In Selling.” This segment focuses on how enthusiasm can transform your sales performance and professional life.
Introduction
Have you ever wondered what separates wildly successful salespeople from those who merely get by? According to Frank Bettger, who transformed his own career from failure to remarkable success, the answer might be simpler than you think.
In this post, we’ll explore what Bettger calls “the biggest single factor in successful selling” - enthusiasm - and how you can harness this powerful force to transform your own results.
The Transformative Power of Enthusiasm
Bettger’s own story demonstrates the remarkable impact of enthusiasm. By his own account, simply deciding to act with enthusiasm increased his income by 700 percent in just ten days. This wasn’t mere coincidence. Enthusiasm creates a contagious energy that draws people in and makes them receptive to your message.
Think about it: when you encounter someone who’s genuinely excited about what they’re sharing, don’t you find yourself becoming interested too? This natural human response explains why enthusiasm works so well in sales. When you’re enthusiastic, your listeners are likely to become enthusiastic too, even if your presentation isn’t perfect. Without enthusiasm, even the most technically sound sales talk falls flat - as Bettger colorfully puts it, it’s
about as dead as last year’s turkey.
The Psychology Behind Enthusiasm’s Effectiveness
Enthusiasm works because it bridges a fundamental gap in human psychology. The philosopher and psychologist William James, whom Bettger references, observed that
action seems to follow feeling, but really action and feeling go together; and by regulating the action, which is under the more direct control of the will, we can indirectly regulate the feeling.
In plain terms: you don’t have to feel enthusiastic to act enthusiastic. By intentionally adjusting your behavior - speaking with more energy, smiling more genuinely, moving more dynamically - you can actually generate the feelings of enthusiasm that will make your sales efforts more effective.
Putting Enthusiasm Into Practice
So how can you develop genuine enthusiasm that transforms your sales results? Here are practical steps you can take starting today:
1. Start with Your Foundation: Preparation and Knowledge
True enthusiasm springs from confidence, and confidence comes from preparation. Bettger emphasizes that you must
know your business… and keep on knowing your business.
When you thoroughly understand your product or service and how it benefits customers, enthusiasm flows naturally.
Action step: Set aside regular time each week to deepen your product knowledge. As Bettger notes, successful people like Mary Roberts Rinehart dedicated specific days (such as Fridays) exclusively to preparation and wouldn’t let anything interfere with this schedule.
2. Focus on Solving Problems, Not Just Selling
Enthusiasm becomes genuine when you’re focused on how you can actually help people. Bettger’s central insight is that selling is fundamentally about
finding out what people want, and helping them get it.
When you reframe selling as problem-solving, your enthusiasm becomes authentic rather than forced.
Action step: Before every sales conversation, ask yourself:
What problem could my product or service solve for this particular customer?
Make this your primary focus.
3. Practice Physical Enthusiasm
Remember William James’s insight that action and feeling go together. You can develop enthusiasm through deliberate physical practice.
Action step: Before your next sales call or meeting, practice these physical manifestations of enthusiasm:
- Speak 25% louder than you normally would
- Increase your speaking pace slightly
- Gesture more naturally and energetically
- Make consistent eye contact
- Smile genuinely (which Bettger calls giving “every living soul you meet the best smile you ever smiled in your life”)
4. Develop a Routine for Maintaining Enthusiasm
Sales work has its ups and downs. To maintain consistent enthusiasm, you need systems and habits that keep you energized.
Action step: Create a personal “enthusiasm ritual” - a set of actions you take daily to maintain your positive energy. This might include:
- Reading customer testimonials or success stories
- Reviewing your own past successes
- Starting the day with physical exercise
- Listening to motivational content
- Practicing gratitude for what you’ve achieved
5. Make Enough Calls and Track Your Results
Bettger emphasizes that
selling narrows down to one thing—just one thing… seeing the people!
The act of making regular sales calls creates its own positive momentum, while keeping detailed records helps you learn what’s working.
Action step: Set a non-negotiable daily target for sales calls or meetings, and track your results meticulously. Bettger notes that “selling is the easiest job in the world if you work it hard—but the hardest job in the world if you try to work it easy.”
Making Enthusiasm Sustainable
The challenge with enthusiasm isn’t just creating it once but maintaining it consistently. Here’s how to make your enthusiasm sustainable:
Regular Skills Development
According to Bettger,
all the leaders and successful men I’ve ever met have had courage and self-confidence, and most of them, I notice, are able to express themselves convincingly.
He particularly recommends public speaking as a way to build these qualities.
Action step: Join a public speaking group such as Toastmasters, or volunteer to present at team meetings. If joining such clubs seems bothersome, pick up your phone and start recording yourself talking. Once done, review your video and identify areas for improvement. Slowly, you will witness improvement in your speech delivery and overcome your fear
Bettger found that “when I lost my fear of speaking to audiences, I lost my fear of talking to individuals, no matter how big and important they were.”
Disciplined Time Management
Rather than draining your energy, a structured schedule actually enhances enthusiasm by creating accomplishment and momentum.
Action step: Create a weekly schedule with specific time blocks for preparation, prospecting, meetings, and follow-ups. As Mary Roberts Rinehart told Bettger when asked if her tight schedule exhausted her: “On the contrary, my life took on a new zest.”
Key Takeaways
- Enthusiasm is the single biggest factor in successful selling, capable of transforming your results dramatically.
- True enthusiasm comes from genuine knowledge of your product and a desire to help people solve problems.
- You can create enthusiasm through deliberate physical actions, even when you don’t initially feel enthusiastic.
- Regular preparation, structured scheduling, and consistent practice build sustainable enthusiasm.
- Making regular sales calls while tracking your results creates positive momentum that feeds enthusiasm.
Action Plan
- Start tomorrow by dedicating 30 minutes to deepening your product knowledge.
- Before your next sales conversation, list three specific problems your product might solve for that customer.
- Practice speaking with more energy, smiling more genuinely, and maintaining better eye contact.
- Create a daily “enthusiasm ritual” with 3-5 activities that energize you.
- Set a specific target for weekly sales calls and create a simple system to track your results.
Reflection Questions
- When was the last time you felt genuinely enthusiastic about your product or service? What specific aspects generated that enthusiasm?
- How might focusing more on solving customer problems, rather than just making sales, change your level of enthusiasm?
- What physical habits might be dampening your natural enthusiasm when interacting with customers?
- What specific preparation routine could you implement to increase your confidence and enthusiasm?
- If you increased your sales call volume by 25%, how might that affect your results and your enthusiasm?
Looking Forward
In the next segment of this series, we’ll explore Bettger’s powerful insights on understanding customers’ needs and helping them recognize what they truly want - the foundation of all successful selling. You’ll learn practical questioning techniques that uncover the “key issue” in any sales situation and help you close more deals by addressing what really matters to your customers.
Jump to Part 2 - Mastering Customer Needs - The Question Method
This content represents my own analysis and interpretation of concepts from Frank Bettger’s _How I Raised Myself From Failure To Success In Selling. For the complete experience and the full depth of these ideas, I highly recommend purchasing and reading the original book.