Trump: How to Get Rich

me? It was incredibly flattering. Then again, I doubt those people knew what they might have been getting themselves into. I heard through the grapevine at my office, on one particularly rough day, that the name for The Apprentice competitors who didn’t win spots on the show was The Lucky Fifteen.

There were some amusing moments before we began taping. Mark Burnett brought his adoring father, Archibald, to visit one day. After meeting me, he said, You’re much more handsome in person than I would have thought. Maybe you don’t photograph so well. Good luck with the show. Mark quickly interjected that his father was from Scotland and tended to be on the blunt side. I think he’s terrific.

Mark is a lot of fun to be around—the British equivalent of a Green Beret. He has no fear and tremendous positive energy, which is my idea of a great leader. We’re both big Neil Young fans, so one night, I took him to a concert at the Taj Majal in Atlantic City and introduced him to Neil backstage. Then we went to Naomi Campbell’s party in New York City.

I always made a point of mentioning Survivor when I introduced Mark to people, but later I realized I was getting some confused looks when I did it, particularly from a Chinese poker winner we met at the Taj Majal. It took me a moment to figure out that Survivor probably isn’t on TV in China. The poker winner thought Mark was a cancer survivor and didn’t know what to say.

When the crew of the show first appeared at Trump Tower, they created a bit of a buzz. Our ordinary routine was altered by just their presence. It was unusual to see all of those cameras. But within a couple of weeks, it became part of the routine. Jay Bienstock and Kevin Harris, two of Mark Burnett’s producers, became fixtures of our organization. Then NBC executive Jim Dowd became a regular. If anything, it was when they weren’t around that it seemed like something was amiss. They were never an imposition, and we even missed them when taping was over.

Unlike a scripted movie or TV show,The Apprentice that you have seen on NBC is pretty much the way it was behind the scenes. That’s the idea—behind the scenes is in front of your eyes. Right away, I can hear you saying, But we heard the boardroom was a set, and not your boardroom at all. That’s true, but the only reason we built another boardroom was because my own boardroom at The Trump Organization is in constant use, and having a film crew in it every week for several months would have disrupted my business. So we built a replica on the fourth floor of Trump Tower. The reception area was also built there because the comings and goings of the sixteen apprentices and a TV production crew would have been a disturbance to our employees and our guests, some of whom may not have been expecting a close-up.

The set was built in Trump Tower so I could take an elevator and be there in fewer than two minutes. My regular business schedule is hectic, so traveling to and from an off-site location could have caused problems. Using the space we had on-site proved to be a good decision.

The living quarters for the sixteen applicants were also built on the fourth floor, and the equipment necessary for filming was installed there. It was an amazing setup, with sound rooms, tech rooms, lights, cameras, and what seemed like miles of cables. When I first saw it all, I realized the immensity of the preparations that went into this show, with designers, decorators, technicians, assistants, producers, and directors all working like mad. At any point, there could be twenty-eight cameras going at once. This was a big operation.

One day after seeing this, I paused silently for a moment. What if the show was a flop? All this work, all this energy… well, it just had to work. And I was determined to do my best to make it a hit.

The reassuring thing was that I didn’t have to act. That gave me some comfort. Mark Burnett told me that my value to the show would be in just being myself. Is there such a thing as acting like yourself? I don’t know, but I try not to think about it. I’m just myself.

I didn’t have to read any scripts or learn any lines. Despite having a great memory, I don’t have time for that, anyway. Mark would appriise me of the assignments for the applicants each week and we’d go from there. I enjoyed the spontaneity of the process, because we don’t rehearse episodes in our daily business life. What happens, happens.

What went on in the boardroom or anywhere else was not fabricated in any way. If it seemed dramatic, that’s because business is dramatic. There’s nothing boring about it. There’s nothing passive about it, either—even for viewer.

Seeing the eagerness and anticipation of the sixteen winning applicants was a rush in itself. I never used the word contestants in describing them, because this was not a game. People who think their jobs are a game aren’t people I want to have around. A lot of these people already had lucrative positions or businesses of their own, so they weren’t in it merely for some prize money. We made sure they were all serious about learning something not only after the process but during it. This also ensured that each applicant would be a winner, no matter what the outcome of their quest turned out to be. How many other reality shows have you seen that has only winners? That was another reason The Apprentice was so appealing to me. There would be no losers in this win-win situation. My kind of show.

I know what you’re thinking.But you fired fifteen people! Yeah, but look what they got to do. Look what they got to see. Look what they learned.

All of the tasks required of my would-be apprentices required negotiation skills of one type or another. I was particularly interested in the way the applicants approached the task of achieving maximum savings from a list of items we told them to buy. Items ranged in value from $10 to $550. The highest-ticket item thatd could be discounted was a luxury golf club, a Callaway driver. The winning team homed in on this item. The losers spent their time trying to buy gold, a relatively fixed-price commodity. The winning team learned an essential lesson in negotiation and business: If you win on the big point, you don’t sweat the minor ones.

The sixteen applicants quickly became people I liked and cared about—in the way a boss cares about his employees. They were all dynamic individuals with a lot on the ball. It wasn’t easy to fire any of them.

Heidi Bressler, 30, an account executive from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Heidi is strong, and she kept her objectives in focus in her dealings. She used her account executive background to her advantage in keeping herself balanced.

Jason Curis, 24, a real estate entrepreneur from Detroit, Michigan. Jason has a lot on the ball, but he’s young and a little rash. For those of you who missed the episode, Jason cut me off, in mid- sentence, in the boardroom. You never interrupt the boss in a meeting. You never interrupt the client in a meeting, either. But he will continue to learn and achieve.

Katrina Campins, 24, a real estate broker from Coral Gables, Florida. Katrina is very accomplished already as a broker, which is a different scenario from that of being the president of a company. I think she will continue to prove herself in her field, possibly becoming an entrepreneur. She will be a success in life.

David Gould, 31, a health care venture capitalist from New York City. David has an exceptional educational background, with both an MBA and an MD, but business is not yet his forte. He surprised me in the first episode when he said salesmanship was not one of his skills. Why volunteer any deficiency? He was the first to be fired.

Jessie Conners, 21, owner of a chiropractic marketing and management company from New Richmond, Wisconsin. Jessie was an interesting mixture of sophistication and innocence. She competed like an experienced player, then did herself in by taking unnecessary abuse from a colleague. You’ve got to fight back if you want to be successful in business. But don’t underestimate her.

Bowie Hogg, 25, an account executive at FedEx, from Dallas, Texas. Bowie has great determination, but when it came to selling, he fell short. He learned a lot, and I’m confident he’ll be successful in his career.

Kristi Frank, 30, a real estate broker and restaurant owner from Bel Air, California. Kristi knows a lot about the real world in many ways, due to her business experience, but her failure to stand up for herself showed a lack of one hundred percent focus on her immediate goal. She will do well for herself if she focuses more.

Kwame Jackson, 29, a Harvard MBA and investment manager at Goldman Sachs, from New York City. He is smooth and collected, and will do what is necessary to succeed. Kwame raised some eyebrows when he signed basketballs at Planet Hollywood, implicitly suggesting to customers that he was famous.