#003: Trump Decoded

Love him or hate him no other politician in our lifetime has created more press, more lovers and more haters than Donald J Trump.  Learn the 7 communication strategies that he used to create his tribe and how you can use this to build yours. David Young: Welcome to the Empire Builders Podcast, teaching business owners the not-so-secret techniques that took famous businesses from mom and pop to major brands. Stephen Semple is a marketing consultant, story collector, and storyteller. I'm Stephen's sidekick and business partner, Dave Young. Before we get into today's episode, a word from our sponsor, which is.... Well it's us. But we're highlighting ads we've written and produced for our clients. So here's one of those. [Peak PTT Ad] David Young: Stephen Semple, my understanding is that we're going to take a little departure again this time, right? I guess it's an empire. I guess it's empire building. You wanted to talk about a different kind of empire, this is not a retail empire. Stephen Semple: It's not a retail empire, it's not a business empire, but it's still interesting. So we're going to talk... And I have to start off with a caveat here because a lot of people love this guy, a lot of people hate this guy. I hate this guy, but I still think he's worth studying because the impact he's had, and that's Donald J. Trump. David Young: There you go. Stephen Semple: Because let's face it, there has not been another politician in our lifetime that has had the impact and the attention worldwide politically, or who has the degree of... And granted that's not the majority of the American population, but it's certainly a significant portion of the population who are unbelievably loyal to him. And whether you think he's truthful or whether you think he's a liar, whether you love him or you hate him, doesn't matter, we need to study him. I need to put it out there, this is not coming from a place of I love Trump. David Young: This is not an admiration episode. This is a let's deconstruct it, figure out are there some things that he did that helped build this personal brand? I guess that's one way. I don't even know that I would- Stephen Semple: Let's just call it ratings. Let's call it ratings. David Young: I wouldn't even think of his business empire as an empire that we would ever talk about, right? Stephen Semple: No. David Young: Not absent his name. Stephen Semple: Right. But the point is he's had a communication strategy that we're going to decode that has created raving fans and mass loyalty on a huge basis. And that is worth understanding. David Young: All right, you got my attention. Stephen Semple: Okay. So there's basically seven things. If you take a look there's seven things that he has done unbelievably well to make all of this happen. And I'm going to put them in marketing terms and then we'll look at what he's actually done. So the first one of marketing terms, and many of them are things that we talked to customers about for years, which is speak to the customer in the language of the customer. Always remember when you're creating ads, don't use ad speak. If the customer has this weird way of referring to things- David Young: Use that. Stephen Semple: ... use that. Now in the case of Donald Trump in the political world, it would be don't sound like a politician. Well, Trump doesn't sound like a politician when he's talking. He really doesn't. When he speaks it really does feel like he's speaking to you one-on-one. It feels like it's a type of thing you could be sitting across the table having a coffee with him. David Young: He defends a lot of it by saying it's just locker room talk. Stephen Semple: He does. David Young: That's exactly what it feels like, right? It doesn't make it necessarily right, but that's an accurate description. Stephen Semple: Speaking to the customer in the language of the ...