10 Marketing Lessons from a World-Famous Con Man

by Geoff Bright · May 12, 2023

Have you seen the 2002 movie, Catch Me If You Can? It starred Tom Hanks and Leonardo DiCaprio, directed by Steven Spielberg and based on the cons of real life Frank Abagnale.

Frank impersonated an airline copilot, was a phony college professor, passed as a pediatrician in a Georgia hospital, faked it as a lawyer on an attorney general’s staff and cashed 17,000 bad checks for a total of $2.5 million in the 1960’s and 70’s.

And he did all this starting at the ripe old age of 16.

Frank was eventually caught, served time in three different countries and then started his own consulting firm in which he helped businesses safeguard against con men just like him.

I recently watched an interview Frank did with Johnny Carson on The Tonight Show back in 1978 after he got out of prison and started his business.

And while I would never advocate that you do anything illegal, I do have to admire someone who was so good at his ‘job’ as to fool hundreds of professional people into believing him.

What lessons can we extrapolate from Frank?

1: Experience builds confidence

Frank ran away from home at the age of 16 and got a job, but he wasn’t making enough money to support himself. That’s when he began writing bad checks. Soon enough he realized that the more he did it, the more confidence he built.

If you’ve been putting something off because you’ve never done it before, the best advice might be to simply do it now, before your head hits the pillow tonight.

2: Confidence leads to more experience

Confidence from cashing bad checks led to forging checks and ID’s, which lead to having the confidence to impersonate a pilot in order to fly for free.

Once you’ve done that small thing and survived, it’s easier to take on the big thing and be successful at that, too.

3: Opportunities are everywhere

Frank wanted to leave New York because the police were looking for him. While walking up 42^nd street, he saw an airline crew coming out of a hotel and thought that would be the perfect front to travel around the country for free and stay at hotels for free, posing as a dead-heading airline pilot.

If you have a problem, keeping your eyes open for a possible solution – no matter how unusual it might be – and then jumping on that solution is the surest way to success.

4: Ask for help

Frank needed a pilot’s uniform, so he called Pan-am, said he was a west coast pilot in New York and his uniform had been stolen, and they helped him to get a new one.

In online marketing it’s not only okay to get help, it’s actually a much better method than trying to go it alone.

5: Don’t pay if you can get paid instead

Frank would stay in hotels for free with the charge going to the airline. Then in the morning before he left, he would get a personal check cashed at the front desk because the hotels had agreements with the airlines to honor employees’ personal checks.

This got me thinking… how can I get the services I use for free, and even get paid to use those services? One great answer is to become an influencer and promote the service to others. Another method is to offer the service to others myself, outsourcing it and keeping the difference as profit.

6: Crime pays but there’s a big price

While Frank made $2.5 million in the 60’s and early 70’s, he paid a heavy price by continuously having to be on the run all the time for 5 years. He says he was lonely and despairing, and I have to think it was almost a relief when he was finally caught.

I like to sleep at night, I don’t want to be on the run and I like to have friends, so I keep everything 100% above board and legal in my businesses.

7: Delegate your work

When Frank passed himself off as a doctor, he was supervising 7 interns on the midnight to 8am shift. Frank knew absolutely nothing about medicine, but he knew how to delegate. When a patient came in he’d ask the first intern, “What do you think?” The first intern would give a diagnosis and what he thought was the right treatment. Frank would then ask the other interns if they concurred. If they did, he would tell them to go ahead and do it. Ironically, Frank became one of the most respected residents because he was the only one that ever allowed the interns to do anything.

Not sure how to do something? Want to have someone more knowledgeable than you do it for you? Then start delegating. Hire outsourcers, a virtual assistant or whatever you need to get the job done properly.

8: You don’t need certificates or permission to achieve success

Frank created phony credentials that allowed him to take the bar exam in Louisiana. He studied for 3 or 4 months, legally passing the bar on his third attempt. He got a job as corporate lawyer on the attorney general’s staff and worked there for a year, winning a number of cases. That’s a pretty remarkable achievement for someone who didn’t even finish high school.

I’m not sure if the lesson here is that anyone can become a lawyer, or that (as Johnny said) he could have ended up prosecuting himself.

Maybe it’s that you don’t need fancy credentials and years of overpriced schooling to realize your dreams. You don’t need someone else’s permission to be successful, either.

What you do need is focus, tenacity and the belief that you can do it.

9: Build on what you already have

Frank now has his own firm, doing consulting work for large corporate banks and departments stores, teaching them how to not get ripped off.

Whatever your specialized skill, there’s a good chance you can monetize it. What are you good at? What do you know more about than 99% of people? And who is willing to pay you for that information? If you can answer those questions, you have a viable business idea.

10: Spell it out for your customers

One day in Frank’s consulting business he wanted to test a client’s store personnel. Buying a small item, he wrote a check with his name on it for $10 and gave the clerk the store manager’s driver’s license as I.D. The clerk accepted the I.D. with no problem whatsoever, even though the store manager looked nothing like Frank and the names didn’t match.

You might think your customers understand things or see important details, but unless you spell it out for them, there’s a good chance they will completely miss it.

Don’t assume your customers know why your product will give them the results they seek. Lay it all out for them, step by step, to ensure they miss nothing.

One last thing: Frank was gifted at acting like the person he wanted to become. What if you act like you are already super successful and have a thriving business?

As they say, be like the person you want to become and you will become that person.