Customer Reviews

Trump University Marketing 101: How to Use the Most Powerful Ideas in Marketing to Get More Customers

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So you're managing your own business or organization, and you need to figure out how to reach potential customers and generate sales. You don't hold an MBA, and you don't have the time or money to take a college or continuing ed marketing course. What do you do? Well, this book is sure to give you a solid foundation from which to launch a campaign. Author Don Sexton, a business professor at Columbia University as well as Trump University, has compiled a definitive text that not only is readable and understandable, but also offers a practical approach to what could be considered a complex and daunting task: getting your product in the hands of your customers.

Boiled down to its basics, marketing can be illustrated by the following scenario, told on pages 166-167:

"Ralph Waldo Emerson said, 'Build a better mousetrap, and the world will beat a path to your door.'
The marketing version of that quotation is: If you build a better mousetrap, then customers will buy it only if:
They know they have mice.
They want to get rid of the mice.
They believe a mousetrap is the best way to get rid of the mice.
They believe your mousetrap is better.
They believe your price is reasonable given the competitors' mousetraps and prices.
They know where to buy your mousetrap."

This book shows you how to achieve that kind of marketing success.

"Marketing 101" moves step-by-step through all facets of the overall marketing plan, with chapters dedicated to understanding customers, understanding competitors, identifying markets, branding, advertising, promoting, Internet marketing, coordinating communications, and pricing. Sexton doesn't just spout theory about marketing, managing perceived value, developing a growth plan, or conducting market research. He also offers practical techniques that can be applied in real-life situations. For example: "Coupons should have a triangle shape so they can be cut easily from a page. Your contact information should be both on the coupon and the page so what remains after the coupon is gone still functions as your ad." (pages 248-9) Readers in small businesses or organizations will appreciate the "guerrilla marketing" chapter near the end of the book, which shows how all of the previous tasks can be scaled down to meet the needs of those with staff or financial constraints. The recommendations in this book can be used by anyone in any kind of business that deals with customers, services, and/or products. Each reader will find something useful here.

Many of the examples provided -- predictably -- feature the Trump brand. But they're not just from the real estate side of the Trump empire. Also represented are items from the Donald J. Trump Signature Collection: watches, dress shirts, ties, suits, eyewear, fragrance, and even cell-phone ringtones. And branding is emphasized as an important aspect of what your business or organization is all about. Who better to illustrate that truth than Trump?

Kudos to Donald Trump, Trump University, and author Don Sexton for providing blank worksheets and review questions for each chapter on the university web site. Having easy access to these documents proves quite handy for printing and studying, and the pages are invaluable for sharing with colleagues while going through the planning process. The review questions help you relate what you've read to your own situation. They force you to think about who your customers are, who your target market is, and who your competitors are. Without a strong focus, your marketing approach will inevitably fail.

Other titles in the Trump University series so far include "Real Estate 101" and "Entrepreneurship 101." If those other offerings have text of the same quality as found in "Marketing 101," then the Trump Organization has found yet another domain to dominate: business textbooks. After all, those Apprentices have to learn the ropes somehow, don't they?

I'm a feverent fan of Donald Trump and for that reason I wanted to like this book. So, I approached this book with very wide expectations. I was disappointed.

My first reaction upon reading this book was at how much it discusses theory over any actual practical knowledge. This book doesn't read like it was written by an experienced marketing executive has led proactive and aggressive marketing campaigns.. It reads like it was written by an academician that has never been bloodied or ever left his classroom.

For example - in this book, there is a detailed analysis of "Donald Trump, The Fragrance". It discusses how Estee Lauder sought to develop a fragrance with a smell that would communicate different aspects of Trump's personality, such as "confidence, success, and character". That sounds nice - except that it displays a profound ignorance of how the fragrance industry works. Any experienced marketing professional will tell you that when marketing colognes and perfumes, the smell of the fragrance is almost inconsequential. Colognes and perfumes are all about branding, branding, branding.. That's why 95% of a fragrance's success is the careful development of the print and television ads, which are ignored here.

As a testament to this, remember that Bill Gates made Windows 95 a popular brand by hiring a V.P. of Marketing from the perfume industry ("I know nothing about software. I know everything about branding").

Donald Trump is an experienced Marketeer, and I expected more than sweet theories on dominant buying propositions and the like. This is a book that lacks any real-world knowledge and looks like it was written by an academic such as the stuffy business school teacher in the Rodney Dangerfield movie "Back to School". It promotes conducting expensive surveys and focus groups to determine what your customers want, rather than studying the psychological buying motives of your target industry.

I'm not saying that this book is useless. If you know absolutely nothing about Marketing, this book can show you the raw theoretical basics. But there is little of practical real-world value.

Trump University is a fantastic concept, and if it was really run by Mr. Trump, and if the content was carefully administered by Mr. Trump, I have no doubt it would be creating multimillionaires every day. Unfortunately, Mr. Trump subcontracted out Trump U. to a small company that took old tapes and books on "How to Succeed in Real Estate" that never sold 15 years ago and pasted the Trump logo on it. It supplements this by sending subscribers to the Trump University mailing list spam for photo contests and drugs (diet drugs, pet medication, hoodia, etc). This book is about as useful as spam.

This book is great theories on how to reach your target audience. Good stuff for the person who knows little about marketing. However if you are a seasoned pro looking to further your knowledge it will probably lack wisdom for you. It is more about the four P's- Product, Price, Place, Promotion as well as customer perceptions, perceived value and how to build strategies. There is a good chapter about understanding your companies capabilities against competition, developing growth plans and even some information about internet strategies and their importance followed by measuring results. Common knowledge for a seasoned pro but a good read for the up and coming or college grad.

Good insight into technical sales and opportunity development from a very lofty perspective. A little too domineering for my liking but with helpful examples and guides none-the-less.

Trump is good at many things, but if I were to pick the one thing that he is the best at, it would be marketing himself and his businesses. How many business owners' names are household names? Not many, but someone with a similar brand name is Warren Buffett. I picked up this book because I realize that marketing is the most important aspect of any business. If you don't have any customers, you have no one to service, and it doesn't really matter how good you are.

Even though Trump did not write this book, I found it extremely valuable. The author demonstrated how Trump developed marketing plans for some of his businesses such as colognes, casinos, shirts, and real estate. I remember attending a real estate convention years ago. The speakers on the panel could not believe that Trump was getting around $800 per square foot for condos in downtown Chicago while other competing properties were selling for around $300 per square foot. Trump has something called a moat. This term was coined by Warren Buffett to describe a competitive advantage. People find value in anything associated with the name Trump. If you want to learn how to develop it for yourself, then you should read this book.

- Mariusz Skonieczny, author of Why Are We So Clueless about the Stock Market? Learn how to invest your money, how to pick stocks, and how to make money in the stock market

This book is a branded homage to the business acumen of Donald Trump, illustrating his success in marketing everything from cologne and shirts to commercial real estate and casinos. Author Don Sexton covers the basic building blocks of marketing strategy. His writing is straightforward, and he includes worksheets and checklists for novices, though he offers little new for experienced marketers. He covers a wide range of topics, from the basics of media outreach to managing research and financial benchmarks for a marketing campaign. The examples are limited almost exclusively to the Trump Empire, given that this is part of the "Trump University" series. We commend this as a good basic book on marketing.

I've read numerous introductory marketing books in the past to try and get a satisfactory practical understanding of this topic and have found that none of them come close to this one.

After reading this book I now feel I'm conversant in all the key aspects that should be considered in the formulation of a marketing strategy.

This is an excellent textbook and resource for students, entrepreneur as well as for all marketing and sales manager.

The book gives a clear roadmap of all necessary marketing tools and information. I would strongly recommend to everyone who willing to learn more from professionally written book

I, like many other people, am a big fan of Donald Trump. You may or may not like him, but one cannot help but admire his success. What I also have always found interesting is his consistent style- very straightforward, no-nonsense, with a focus on getting the job done v/s jargon. That equity is something he has leveraged admirably, from The Apprentice to Trump University to the series of books that has spurred.

This specific book, however, may be a good case study of one of the typical pitfalls of such brand extensions- viz. when you extend a brand into any new area, be careful that you aren't diluting what made that brand special in the first place. I picked up Marketing 101 thinking I would get a very `Donald Trump style' insight into the world of marketing- instead it read like any other marketing text- a lot of models, charts and concepts- but few insights into how to actually get work done in the world of marketing. Not that the book is bad- in fact it is a useful marketing text to have- but if you want the concepts and theories of marketing, you'd read Kotler or Aaker, you wouldn't go to Donald Trump!

I'd say this is a book that didn't realize its potential and fell victim to a classic marketing blunder- megabranding in a way that loses out the essence of what made the `parent' brand tick!

- Mainak Dhar, author, Brand Management 101: 101 Lessons from Real-World Marketing

By reading the Trump University series of books, like "Marketing 101" learn how to be successful and receive the support you need to make it happen.... The Trump University is a fantastic resource!