|
Two Sides of a Coin
By Michael Alan Hamlin
August 9,2004
Is it his infamous hair? The flick
of his wrist when he says, "Your're Fired." to the latest
would-be Trump employee in the hit reality TV show, The Apprentice?
His books? Whatever it is, billionaire Donald Trump has been the
ubiquitous Samson of American real estate for more than two decades.
His name is everywhere - Visa cards, labels of bottled water, every
building he develops, in blazing neon lights adorning the Atlantic
City Trump Taj Mahal Casino Resort, on the personal coat of arms
he created for himself, and of course on his own successful TV series.
My co-authors - Irving Rein and Philip Kotler - and I suggest in
High Visibility that Trump is synonymous with wealth, prestige,
excess - and the pinnacle of New York real estate. Trump's expert
management of his personal brand is one of the principal reasons
why this is so.
A poll of 800 senior executives by property consultant Neil Ostergren
showed just two names universally top-of-mind in American real estate,
Trump and middle-income housing pioneer William Levitt. Although
Trump came close to declaring bankruptcy in the recession-hit early
1990s, he sold properties, refinanced casinos, and worked with contractors
to claw himself back to respectability and at least the appearance
of financial health. Many credit him for largely and single-handedly
resuscitating New York real estate following the recession. To make
sure he had the last word against his detractors, Trump wrote The
Art of the Comeback, a public scolding of those who doubted him,
but most of all a public pronouncement that he was back on top.
To finance the redevelopment of Manhattan's West Side, Trump visited
Hong Kong real estate magnate Vincent Lo, and eventually talked
six companies into putting up all the money including fees and an
attractive bonus for Trump. "Lo was stunned by his speed and
oversized personality. 'We don't have anyone like him here, that's
for sure,'" Lo told Fortune magazine. And that's just the point.
Very high, sustained awareness of the Trump makes it a unique tool
for raising money and selling real estate at a handsome premium.
An impending high-tech initial public offering also demonstrates
how personal brand mystique can throw investors into a frenzy. "You
can make money without doing evil" two young PhD candidates
in computer science recently said in an Inc. interview. They are
Larry Page and Sergey Brin, and they took that self-proclaimed notion,
along with some exotic technology, and promoted themselves and their
company, Google, into an international business sensation. They
appear to the public as clean-shaven, well-groomed geeks who have
some pretty high-minded notions about the way a business should
be run. For instance, although the company has grown to thousands
of employees, everyone still meets together on Fridays to discuss
business as a group.
The fun-filled Google environment is a key component of the two
entrepreneurs' collective personal brand, and features whacky perks
such as hockey games and on-site masseuse services. The two entrepreneurs
themselves make it very clear that their success hasn't changed
who they are. Brin drives an old Toyota. They spend most of every
waking hour at work. They have fun. But they also carefully calibrate
media coverage to perpetuate their image as humble entrepreneurs
concerned most about their employees and making a profit honorably
by providing a valuable service. Along with technology that changed
the way Internet searches take place, the youthful entrepreneurs
leveraged a quirky company name and their persistent do-good image
to dominate search engines developed by much larger companies such
as Microsoft and Yahoo! Google has even became a verb, replacing
"search."
Although many analysts suggest that Google will single-handedly
resuscitate the market for high-tech initial public offerings (IPO)
later this year, Page and Brin are taking their company public not
by choice, but as a result of Securities and Exchange Commission
rules and demands by early investors. Sitting on nearly $500 million
in cash and quarterly profits approaching $100 million, there's
little reason for the two entrepreneurs to assume the reporting
hassles every public company is obligated to regularly address.
After all, Google has almost as much cash before its IPO as eBay
had after it went public.
So Page and Brin are leveraging their celebrity to change the rules
for going public, since they have to anyway. Their plan is to retain
control of the company while providing equal opportunities for small
investors. A public auction of the shares should inhibit investment
banks from distributing shares to favored clients intending to quickly
flip them. Two classes of stock will keep control firmly in the
hands of the entrepreneurs. If all goes according to plan, the radical
IPO will turn this one-product company into a $30 billion company,
bigger than General Motors.
These examples show that personal brands and substance are two sides
of a coin. You have to have both. Communicating success is just
as important as success itself.
(Michael Alan Hamlin is the managing director of consultancy TeamAsia
and the author of three books on Asian economies and companies.
His latest book is Marketing Asian Places, of which he is
a co-author (Wiley, 2001), and he is currently at work on High
Visibility: The Making and Marketing of Asian Professionals into
Celebrities. Write him at mahamlin@teamasia.com.).
Copyright © 2004 Michael Alan Hamlin. All Rights Reserved.
(###)
|
