He was 38 and sleeping in a client’s basement. Donny Deutsch had been told to bond with the new Canadian head of IKEA, and there he was, lying in the small bed wondering what exactly he had gotten himself into.

Deutsch always has done what needed to be done in order to succeed in the advertising, publishing and media worlds. And as he told listeners on Friday in the Joyce Hergenhan auditorium in Newhouse III, if spending the night in a major client’s home was necessary, he would do it.

The host of CNBC’s ‘The Big Idea with Donny Deutsch’ and head of multi-billion dollar advertising firm Deutsch, Inc. spent an hour going over the skills necessary to become successful and fulfilled in the business world.

‘You’ve got to passion up,’ Deutsch told the full auditorium. ‘Put a thought bubble over your head and ask yourself what you love. You’ve got to find something you care about, something that you’re so passionate about and then do it.’

Deutsch – who considers himself ‘average’ despite being introduced as ‘The Elvis of Manhattan’ – described his start in the advertising business as luck. His father started the small firm, then called David Deutsch Associates, where Deutsch worked for two years before being fired. Despite being born into what he called the ‘lucky sperm club,’ with his father having already done the groundwork for the company, Deutsch said he just wasn’t passionate enough.

A few years later he came back, took over, and his firm Deutsch, Inc. is now ranked as one of the top 10 advertising firms in the world.

‘You can’t just happen,’ Deutsch said. ‘You have to go into everything you do with a sense of entitlement – of ‘why the hell not?”

He maintains that straightforward attitude his hit CNBC talk show, in which he discusses with billionaires, budding entrepreneurs and celebrities the keys to success in the business world. Deutsch also offers advice to curious investors and inventors, assisting them with the groundwork for their own companies.

During the question-and-answer period of the hour-long event, Deutsch’s expertise was called upon when a Syracuse resident asked Deutsch how to successfully market a friend’s product that they named ‘The Safest Light in the World.’

Deutsch had the man come up to the stage, pitch the product and then spent five minutes going over the product label, name, packaging and sales tactics. In the end he came up with ‘The Firefighter’s Light: Built by Lifesavers,’ because the inventor was a fireman.

‘He makes it seem like anyone could just start their own company,’ Nora Shayler, a second year Onondaga Community College student, said. She heard about Deutsch’s visit and made the trip to Syracuse to hear him speak. ‘He’s so straightforward and makes everything seem very reachable.’

But, Deutsch pointed out to the audience that while you have to dream big – and then supersize that dream – you’ve got to also make failure your friend. And as Analicia Jaramillo, an advertising graduate student, said, Deutsch is famous for telling his viewers what they need to hear: good things aren’t going to just happen.

‘Of all the lives I’ve lead – film (Deutsch owns his own independent film company Deutsch Open City), advertising, publishing and television – I’ve had to remind myself and learn that if I try and fail, I’m no worse off,’ he said. ‘Just doing is half the game. Those titans of the world are not geniuses; they are just bright and know to get back up when they’re hit down in the world.’

Deutsch is different from most other business titans though, as he put it, in that he is a late technological bloomer. He refuses to carry a briefcase, uses a regular cell phone – not a Blackberry – and even has his assistants print out his e-mails so he’s not on the computer all of the time.

‘Technology is great,’ Deutsch said. ‘But you can overuse it and become dependent on it. You have to keep it at a distance; it’s very important that we don’t lose our human tools.’

Deutsch stressed he is successful because he knows how to talk to people and has maintained a good version of himself throughout his years in business.

‘He’s such an inspiration,’ Kyle Burda, a sophomore finance major, said. ‘As long as there’s passion, like Deutsch says, you’ve got a much better chance of making it and succeeding in the world.’

akalliso@syr.edu

Published on February 10, 2008 at 12:00 pm