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Trump This - Small Business Lessons
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| Guest post by: Nelson Davis |
Article Overview: Just when you think that you’ve heard everything about Donald Trump, there’s another chapter being written in the semi fictional book of his life. Last week, I was in New York, the place where he has marked out his most prized territory with tall, expensive buildings. Though his recent dust-up with President Obama is forcing people into “love him” or “can’t tolerate him” positions, I think that small business owners can get some wonderful lessons from a closer look at the Donald’s adventures.
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Trump This - Small Business Lessons
Just
when you think that you’ve heard everything about Donald Trump, there’s
another chapter being written in the semi fictional book of his life.
Last week, I was in New York,
the place where he has marked out his most prized territory with tall,
expensive buildings. Though his recent dust-up with President Obama is
forcing people into “love him” or “can’t tolerate him” positions, I
think that small business owners can get some wonderful lessons from a
closer look at the Donald’s adventures.
Over
the past three decades, he has emerged as one of the greatest personal
brand builders we’ve ever seen or been fascinated by. Think P. T. Barnum
the showman, wrestler “Gorgeous George” or Muhammad Ali. Is Donald
Trump as wealthy as he implies? Perhaps not. Is he the sharpest knife in
the real estate development drawer? I don’t know about that. Does he
have a string of failures on his resume to balance the visible
successes? It certainly seems that way. However, he is probably the best
known real estate developer in the world. The kinds of skyscrapers that
bear his name don’t get built by people with small egos and a lack of
self confidence. Those folks are the ones who build strip malls! Donald
Trump has a very large imaginative life picture for himself and he seems
determined to make that picture his reality. As a budding business
owner, you need to ask yourself how big is your imagination?
Wouldn’t
we all love to have our names and businesses so well known that just
about everyone would return our phone calls and change their schedules
just to meet with us? Well Trump has managed to leverage his name and
reputation to such a degree that a lot of people want to hear what he
has to say and to meet him. I might dispense the same advice as Trump,
but in the parlance of the old south, “his ice is colder.” If you say
that you are great often and long enough, not only will you begin to
behave that way, you’ll have a number of people believing it. It was
P.T. Barnum who said “Without promotion something terrible
happens…Nothing!” Act as if and you’ll find you are charting the course
of your reality.
Names
have great meaning. If Trump had been born Joseph Blotz, would he have
been able to build this strong personal brand. I have a hard time
imagining people anxious to live in the Blotz Tower
or eager to travel miles to gamble at the Blotz Casino. It took a long
time for Henry Ford or Soichiro Honda to have their names represent
excellence in their business category. But trump started life with a
very marketable name. The word Trump appears in Webster’s dictionary as
representing the best card of a particular suit of cards. You may not
want or need to change your personal name for a business advantage, but
choosing the name of your business carefully can be a great help.
Remember that your name and reputation arrive at a potential customer’s
desk before you do.
Name
recognition is not the same as popularity. According to popularity
measurement company Q Scores president Steven Levitt, “Four-and-a-half
times more people are turned off by him than turned on.” But the Trump
name has adorned bottled water, golf clubs, popular books and an
airline! Regardless of what people say or think about him, he is
relentlessly himself. The lesson is that to build a larger than life
personal brand, you must be authentically and consistently yourself
without thinking that you are in a popularity contest. Just ask Rush
Limbaugh about that one. Arnold Schwarzenegger fell from grace as the California governor when he opted for popularity instead of living up to his action hero Mr. Fix It brand identity.
It
takes time to grow into a personal brand that legions of people and
potential partners want to spend time with. Donald Trump’s first big
deal appears to be a $6 million profit in 1968 from revitalizing the Swifton Village apartment complex in Cincinnati. The Trump Tower went up on Manhattan’s Fifth Avenue
in 1983. I’m impressed by the fact that he behaves as though he’s just
as hungry for success now as he was over forty years ago. As long as you
are active in your field, you can’t let the fire go out. It the heat
goes, so do you.
We
all hit low points and sometimes question our path forward and even our
ability to survive. In 1990, Trump was teetering into bankruptcy with
the casinos and trying to persuade bankers and partners to see things
his way. One of the fundamental lessons here is that if you want to
thrive, first you have to survive. All great brand legends are a mixture
of fact and fictitious perceptions. Maybe you are on the way to
becoming an iconic business or personal brand. You have to give it time,
authenticity and relentless pursuit. There will be a day when someone
trumps Mr. Trump.
I’m happy to read your thoughts on building a personal brand.
Article Tags: business lessons, donald trump, small business owners, the donald, trump obama
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About the Author: Nelson Davis RSS for Nelson's articles - Visit Nelson's website Nelson Davis is creator and executive producer of the multi-Emmy winnning small business TV show, "Making It!" During its 20 years on-air, Nelson Davis and his team have profiled over 1000 entrepreneur success stories on air! Nelson Davis now brings the inspiration and knowledge from your TV screen to your computer screen at makingittv.com. Features streaming video of entrepreneur success stories, national business events, professional advice and an abundance of other business resources. Click here to visit Nelson's website Feeding the Hungry An Unwitting Entrepreneur My Mom Freelancing as a Career Option Neha Kashyup Off the Books and Underground A Boys First Business |
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