Frank Bettger

Franklin Lyle "Frank" Bettger (1888–1981) was an American self-help author and the father of longtime actor Lyle Bettger. Bettger played Major League Baseball with the St. Louis Cardinals in 1910 under the name Frank Betcher. He started out his career playing for Johnstown, Pennsylvania, in the Tri-State League, making US$175 a month in 1907 (equivalent to $5,089 in 2021). While there, he was demoted. Disappointed, he asked the manager why he was demoted. 

The manager responded that he lacked enthusiasm. Bettger told the manager: "I'm just trying to hide my nervousness." The manager advised: "Try something else. That's not working." From that moment on, he played with vigorous enthusiasm. Starting with a D League team in 1908 at just US$25 a month (equivalent to $754 in 2021), it wasn't long before he proved himself and signed with the Connecticut State League for US$185 a month (equivalent to $5,579 in 2021). Two years later, in 1910, he had worked his way up to the majors with St. Louis, but his baseball career was cut short by an arm injury.

After his brief baseball career, Bettger returned to his native Philadelphia, where he started collecting accounts for a furniture store on a bike. He then started selling life insurance for the Fidelity Mutual Life Insurance Co. of Pennsylvania but was not initially successful and considered quitting after 10 months. During a moment of reflection, he remembered what his baseball manager told him about his lack of enthusiasm. So he made a commitment to himself to start acting enthusiastically in his insurance presentations.

He also met a successful salesman and took his advice to read the Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin. A light went on in his mind when he realized that Franklin's Socratic method of asking "key" questions might work with selling policies. He tried it, and Bettger began to perfect his technique with great enthusiasm.

After succeeding in life insurance sales and becoming the Top Salesman for 20 years with Fidelity Mutual, he met Dale Carnegie. Carnegie encouraged Bettger to write his first best-selling book: How I Raised Myself from Failure to Success in Selling and How I Multiplied My Income and Happiness in Selling. How I Raised Myself... was translated into over a dozen languages, including British English, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, French, German Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Serbian, Spanish, and Swedish. Bettger also gave a series of lectures to Jaycees organizations nationwide with Dale Carnegie.

Frank Bettger wrote a last book, entitled How I Learned the Secrets of Success in Selling, in 1960. The book focused on his life and the lessons he learned during his short baseball career and reflected how those lessons learned at an early age helped mold him into the success he became.