This Issue: The Seven Critical Traits of Top Entrepreneurs

I don’t go on vacation very often and, when I do, it’s always a working vacation. So the results of a new survey really don’t surprise me.

It reports that one in five people brought laptops with them on their most recent vacations. At least 80 percent brought their cell phones. That’s because when people go on vacation, they don’t want to miss what’s going on at the office.

About one in five said they did some work while vacationing. About the same number called in to the office to see how things were going. Twice as many checked e-mail and even more checked voicemail.

They said they kept up with work for many reasons. They didn’t want to worry about missing important information. They wanted to make sure their bosses knew they were available and dedicated. (That’s pretty smart.) Plus, in many cases, they just enjoyed staying involved.

Although vacations are supposed to be about de-stressing, some people admitted it would be more stressful not knowing what was going on at work while they were away.

And those are the kind of people I want working for me.

As President of Trump University, I meet often with our Chairman, Donald J. Trump. I never forget that just about every businessperson in the world would envy that opportunity. Who wouldn’t want to sit down with Donald J. Trump to get his expert advice on building an enterprise?

This morning, I’d like to share some of the insights I have gained in those meetings. I’ll call them the Seven Critical Traits of Entrepreneurs, because they are business-building themes that Mr. Trump stresses often and energetically.

1.       Have passion - Mr. Trump has never said to me, “Be passionate!” Yet it’s at the core or his thinking. Exactly what is passion? He summarizes it as, “Enthusiasm on a big scale.”

2.       Be tenacious - Mr. Trump is not someone who lets me, or anyone in his organization,  give up on any project until every possibility of success has been explored. Consider the fact that he bought the land for Trump Place in Manhattan way back in 1974 - and it is now nearing completion. That’s tenacity.

3.       Think big  - We all have to start with small steps on any project, but Mr. Trump urges people to take the biggest steps they are capable of. “Thinking big can get you to the top,” he once said, “and I can tell you, it’s not lonely up here!”

4.       Be a sponge for new information and ideas - There’s really no such thing as knowing too much about what you’re doing. Despite his packed schedule, Mr. Trump reads everything he can and strives to get information he can use from everyone he meets. There’s often a book on his desk, and I find that inspiring.

5.       Take action - When you know what you need to know about a project or idea, move decisively. Yet Mr. Trump also has a flexible philosophy and he’s willing to take a step back and start again - tenaciously - if the time is not right to move forward. So it is a matter of taking risks, but considered risks. Mr. Trump once said, “A lot of people are afraid to fail, so they don’t try. They talk, but they don’t do. That’s the perfect formula for failure.”

6.       Learn to negotiate - “Learning to negotiate is invaluable if you hope to connect in any way with other people.”

7.       Enjoy competition - Your competitors are there to help you perform better in the world and - certainly - achieve more success than they have. “Competition forces me to outdo myself,” Mr. Trump has said. “I love competition because, ultimately, it makes me bigger.”

To those of you who are in the United States, I wish you a happy Fourth of July holiday. America is great place to launch a great business. And to our foreign readers, all good wishes for every success. I believe the seven traits I outline above can offer you a blueprint for winning. 

Nobody ever accused the Broadway play “The Color Purple” of being a masterpiece. After it opened its doors in New York in 2005 and got lukewarm reviews from the critics, it soldiered on like many New York shows do,  attracting audiences of suburbanites, tourists and conventioneers.

Enter the Star

Then Fantasia Barrino came along and stepped into the lead role of Miss Celie. You remember her - the charismatic, sandpaper-voiced dynamo who won American Idol a few seasons ago.

Suddenly there was real star power in the cast. The show’s producers, much to their credit, didn’t wait for the world to beat a path to the theater door. They went out and engaged in some powerhouse marketing that catapulted the play to top earnings, with a fresh new life and revitalized potential.

Let’s take a look at some of the components behind the success, as reported in The New York Post on June 22nd, and see how they can spark new profits for your company too.

Component one: A quality product. The play is sound, based on the astonishing novel of the same name by Alice Walker. But with Fantasia in the cast, it becomes the real deal. Even Ben Brantley, the often-bored drama critic at The New York Times, said she was absolutely terrific in her role.

Component two: A unique selling proposition. Fantasia is a very hot commodity - and she isn’t appearing anywhere else at the moment.

Component three: Well-targeted customers. The play’s producers decided to reach beyond the usual tourists who come to New York and to attract tour groups from churches as far away as Tennessee.

Component four: Great packaging. For less than $200, each person in a church group gets round-trip bus transportation to the theater door, a ticket to the show and dinner afterwards at a nearby Broadway eatery.

Component five: Highly targeted, yet pervasive advertising. If you poke around the Internet looking for Alice Walker fan sites and other places related to novel or the play, you will find ads that link directly to tour packages for the Broadway show.

So if you have a product to sell  or revitalize,  why not use some of the same strategies to get some marketing sizzle working for you? You just might make your competitors purple with envy.  

In the summer of 2003, I can remember when Mark Burnett came up to the office to discuss a few things with Mr. Trump. I was not a big television watcher, and I had never seen a reality show. I heard that Mark Burnett had an idea to use Mr. Trump and the Trump Organization as the premise for a new show, a business show. I didn’t think much about it because I was busy writing our first book, which eventually became How To Get Rich.

A lot of people think we wrote the book to satisfy the demands of the publicity caused by the premiere of The Apprentice in January of 2004. The fact is, we were writing it six months before, and it was convenient that the television show came along to give it the spotlight when it came out in March of 2004. I can clearly remember when Mark Burnett was waiting to see Mr. Trump, and he was standing by my desk. He said I looked busy and asked what I was doing, so I told him I was writing a book with Mr. Trump. He was very surprised, and said incredulously, “You’re writing a book with Donald? Then I have to tell you a story!”

I said okay, and to paraphrase it, back in 1987 Mr. Trump’s first book came out, which is considered to be a business classic at this point. It was called The Art of the Deal. Also in 1987, Mark Burnett was working as a nanny and selling tee shirts on Venice Beach in Southern California. He came across a copy of the book, and said to himself, “I have nothing in common with a mogul, but I’m going to read this.” So he did, and as he put it “That book changed my life. I said to myself after reading it--I am going to be someone! I am going to be a success!” And he became determined to do what he hoped to do.

I doubt if Mark Burnett thought, twenty years ago while reading The Art of the Deal  on Venice Beach, that one day he’d be a business partner with Donald Trump. But here he was, waiting to have a meeting with the man who had changed his life around. Mark became a visionary in the television industry, and he pinpoints the turning point in his life to reading a book by a real estate mogul.

Likewise, the turning point for us at the Trump Organization happened to be The Apprentice. Prior to the debut of The Apprentice, the Trump Organization was known as a property management company. Sure, we had a very famous boss, but property management it was. When we heard rumor of the set up of the show being 16 applicants vying for a job at The Trump Organization, with everyone being fired until there was one left, one executive quipped “I think we should name the show The Lucky 15.” It could be pretty intense around here and the thought of cameras, a crew and everything else that went along with a show wasn’t exactly a wonderful prospect in our eyes.

We adjusted, and it became a great experience for all of us. Mark’s team became like family and every day became a new adventure. Best of all, it showed a side of Mr. Trump that people had never seen before. He’s a colorful and multi-dimensional person, in addition to being a brilliant businessman, and Mark’s concept of the show definitely showed those aspects of his persona. We were pleased when it was a hit, and we quit complaining so much about everything. In fact, when the team went back to Los Angeles, we were sorry to see them go.

Looking back, I realize that most of us thought the show might be okay, at best, but we weren’t really prepared for the hit it became. Goes to show you that a visionary can see things we can’t--and goes to show you that it’s a good idea to read Mr. Trump’s books.