Public relations trumps advertising: the Donald

By Jeff Reese

New York (October 24, 2004) - Before an overflow crowd of more than 4,000 PR professionals and students at the opening General Session of the 2004 PRSA International Conference on Oct. 24, Donald Trump credited savvy public relations for saving his struggling financial empire in the early 1990s.

Before Trump's 45-minute talk, there were welcomes and introductions from PRSA President and CEO Del Galloway, APR, PRSA New York Chapter President Burt Wolder, Conference Co-Chairs Grace Leong, APR, and Kathleen Larey Lewton, APR, Fellow PRSA. Honorary Conference Co-Chair, legendary PR executive and longtime Trump friend, Howard Rubenstein, then introduced the tycoon, confiding in the industry crowd that, "We're lucky Donald Trump didn't go into PR."

Trump's talk underscored the power of public relations to his career.

"Seriously, 'Entertainment Tonight' asked me this question: 'Mr. Trump, you're totally brilliant. How brilliant are you?' Now who the hell would put that in an ad, no one would believe it. An ad on 'Entertainment Tonight' would cost me like $150,000 for about 22 seconds. If I ever put something like that in an ad, I'd be run out of town," he said. "I've always felt that public relations is much more important than advertising. You pay $100,000 for a full page and [the readers] don't even look at it. But if they read a story about the genius of Donald Trump, everybody reads every word of it. In one case it costs me nothing, in the other case it costs millions and millions of dollars."

Interwoven with personal anecdotes about dating, marriages and prenuptial agreements, Trump enumerated his rules for success:

• Stay focused.
• Think big.
  "Go for reputation, the guy who can pay your bills. I always like to think big. Do the big job."
• You have to enjoy what you're doing.
  "If you don't enjoy it, you're never going to be good at it. You have to love what you do - that is the single-most important thing."
• You can never quit.
  "If there is a concrete wall in front of you, you have to go through that wall, over that wall, around that wall, it doesn't matter. You can never, ever quit."
• Be paranoid.
  "Being a little bit paranoid isn't bad. Being a lot paranoid probably isn't so good, because you have a life to lead," he said. "Watch out for people who are even close to you, because in the end, if it's a choice between you and them, they're usually going to choose themselves."
• Don't lose your momentum.
  "You have to know when you've lost your momentum. If you know that, you're going to save yourself a lot of problems."
• Don't expect anyone to be on your side.
  "Sad, isn't it? You really have to think of yourself as a one-man show. There are so many examples of men and women who go out and get taken advantage of by their own people. So don't expect anyone to be on your side."
• Always see yourself as victorious.
• Go against the tide; go with your gut.
  "This is a very dangerous thing. Going against the tide isn't good for dumb people."
• Get the best people and trust - "I mean watch" - them.
• Be lucky.
  Trump's friend, the legendary professional golfer Gary Player, once said: " 'The harder I work, the luckier I get.' That's true. What a brilliant statement. You can do things that help create luck."
• Get even.
• To be a winner, you have to think like a winner.
• And, of course:
  Always have a prenuptial agreement.

In addition, Trump touched upon other subjects, including his press:

"I'll be honest with you: I think I get the worst press of any human being in the world. I think I get terrible public relations. I can read four pages of a story in the New York Times and if there's half of a sentence that says like, my hair is terrible, I look like [crap], I take it very personally. I've gotten tougher through the years. I used to go really crazy. I think I get terrible press - I really do. Everyone else thinks I get great press. Howard [Rubenstein] introduces me as the greatest this and that, I'm thinking, 'Are they talking about me?' As far as press is concerned, if you get a lot of it like I do, you're only as good as your last story. It happens to be so true. I recently had a bad story in one paper and a great story in another paper. So I considered it a neutral."