Case Study: Donald Trump, part 2

Case Study: Donald Trump, part 2

I am going to partly review the Art of the Deal by Donald Trump, and also partly going to write about Donald Trump's ideas and thoughts on making money. From the outset, I should tell you that there are certain things that I need to say: one is that most of Donald Trump's ideas on how to become rich have been covered in the last post here on my site, in my

Case Study: Donald Trump, part 1

where I dealt with How to Get Rich, his book full of ideas on how to make money. The second thing is that Donald Trump believes in many things, so here is where a critical and thinking mind is best - we cannot believe everything he says, especially where he says that intuition and instincts can make you rich. That one can be proven to be false, but that is the basis of an entire article. Other things that he says cannot be taken at face value like avoiding handshakes (that is his own personal opinion - and does not contribute to the ideas on making money), his unique hairstyle in the past (come on, that's quite nice to look at but it is not essential to our central theme of making money and becoming rich, and certainly his hairdo and his peculiar habits are not the subject of discussion - only his money making skills are). This brings me to my third point - we must think and mull about what we read and cannot take them simplistically, as application and additional thinking are both required. That said, here are more ideas on becoming rich and making a lot of money from Donald Trump:

Some quotes from Donald Trump and Money Making Ideas from Donald Trump

“I like things big. I always have. To me, it’s very simple: if you’re going to be thinking anyway, you might as well think big.”

This is a good idea - thinking big allows you to see what you can do and what you can reach, and motivates you to make money, so this is one of the good ideas that I would like to share with you.

“It’s been said that I believe in the power of positive thinking. In fact, I believe in the power of negative thinking. I happen to be very conservative in business. I always go into the deal anticipating the worst. If you plan for the worst – if you can live with the worst – the good will always take care of itself.”

Planning is also a very key concept to making money and becoming rich, so anticipation, planning, scenario planning and thinking ahead are all key to success.

"You can have the most wonderful product in the world, but if people don’t know about it, it’s not going to be worth much.”

This is also a very key idea - and emphasises marketing and advertising. After all, without people knowing about an excellent product, it might as well not be excellent at all - since no one knows and no one will buy. This is an excellent money making concept.

Borrowing ideas from many articles and other research that I did online, I find that Donald Trump approaches business very straightforwardly. The key idea is that the art of business can be reduced to the formula of buy low and sell high. For instance, "Much as I like the [Beverly Hill's Hotel] I'm interested in it only if I can get it for a much better price than they're now asking". Donald Trump will walk away from a good piece of property if the numbers don't match up to what he expects them to be. Trump makes a point of surrounding himself with the best talent when making these hard decisions when it comes to making money. In fact, he attributes much of his success in making those correct decisions, of buying low and selling high, to surrounding himself with the best talent available, thus forming his winning team. For example: "I'm just looking to hire the best talent, wherever I can find it [and] I have a very simple rule when it comes to management: hire the best people from your competitors, pay them more than they were earning and give them bonuses and incentives based on their performance. That's how you build a first-class operation". Simply put, there exists no room for second best.

Furthermore, there exists another more intangible component of Trump's success that underscores the need for of a heightened self confidence and personal pride, for instance, according to Donald Trump, "I hate lawsuits and depositions, but the fact is that if you're right, you've got to take a stand, or people will walk all over you” and “You have to be very rough and very tough with most contractors or they'll take the shirt right of your back". These show that Donald Trump has the self confidence to take a stand and make a proper deal, and that people cannot walk all over him. There are many things we can indeed learn from Donald Trump.

Donald Trump wrote several books on making money and how to become rich and successful like himself:

Trump: How to Get Rich

Trump: The Way to the Top

Trump: Surviving at the Top

Trump: The Art of the Deal

The America We Deserve

Trump: The Art of Survival

Honestly, most of them are repetitive and carry the same few ideas, but the key thing is that most of them stress success, confidence, thinking and planning, guts and advertising/ marketing and showmanship. In the final analysis, in Donald Trump's world, that's what makes you the money - that's what makes you rich.

More to come on my Ideas on How to Become Rich blog on case studies of rich men and their money making strategies that allowed them to become rich and successful. Cheers!

Ideas on how to get rich!

Case Study: Donald Trump, part 1

Case Study: Donald Trump, part 1

Here, on my ideas on how to become rich site, I will now talk about Donald Trump. Donald Trump is a billionaire who made most of his money in buildings, construction, casinos, and who can forget the TV series - The Apprentice. Donald Trump is the focus of this post in my case studies on the rich and famous and how they make money. Some people may not like him and indeed there are some who might be unhappy with Trump as a role model, but I think that he is great and he is definitely an expert in making money in real estate.

I first came across Donald Trump when reading Forbes, because he is one of the richest men on earth and certainly a big name in the real estate industry. I read about how his father was actually a rather successful builder, but a rather small time construction person, because even though Donald Trump's father was a good man who worked hard, he never earned billions of dollars. Basically, Donald Trump managed to do that.

Writing a case study on Donald Trump for my ideas site turned out to be easy, relatively speaking, because Donald Trump has written many books on how to become rich and how to make money. He once said that people ask bakers how to bake bread....and so it is wise to ask a billionaire how to make money.

Without further ado, today's case study is on Donald Trump and in particular, his book

How to Get Rich.

Aptly titled, isn't it? And this is a very fitting subject for my ideas site on how to become rich, so much so that one could possibly say that this book was written for me to conduct my research. I will not be lifting materials from his book but rather analysing and then summarising what I see to be the key points and key learning points on how to become rich.

According to Donald Trump there are many key ideas to becoming rich, and they are:

you have to be a general

you have to stay focused on the important parts

you need to maintain your momentum

you need a great assistant

you need to take responsibility

you need to speak clearly and properly

you need to ask yourself "Is there anyone who can do this job better and cheaper than I can?"

you need to have a very good idea

you have to have talent

you have to consistently learn and improve and upgrade

you need to think big and live large

you need to be tenacious

you need to brand yourself and you have to toot your horn

you need to be optimistic, yet you need to be prepared for the worst

you need to know public speaking skills

you need to pay attention to the details

you need a positive attitude

you need to do your homework

you need to dress well

you need to invest simply and effectively

you need to have negotiation skills (- sounds familiar? You will be able to find such materials around my site here, so do use the right sidebar.)

Immediately one can see that Donald Trump's basic message has two key elements, according to my research - one is common sense, and the other is marketing/ branding/ advertising, depending on how you look at it.

You can examine the key ideas I learnt from his book.

These are all common sense ideas on how to make money and how to become successful at a job or in business, and some of the key ideas in those words are known to business students or Economics students:

you have to be a general

you have to stay focused on the important parts

you need to maintain your momentum

you need a great assistant

you need to take responsibility

you need to speak clearly and properly

you need to ask yourself "Is there anyone who can do this job better and cheaper than I can?"

you need to have a very good idea

you have to have talent

you have to consistently learn and improve and upgrade

you need to be tenacious

you need to brand yourself

you need to be optimistic, yet you need to be prepared for the worst

you need to know public speaking skills

you need to pay attention to the details

you need a positive attitude

you need to do your homework

you need to dress well

you need to invest simply and effectively

you need to have negotiation skills

These are all ideas related to marketing/ branding/ advertising:

you need to speak clearly and properly

you need to think big and live large

you need to brand yourself and you have to toot your horn

you need to know public speaking skills

you need to pay attention to the details

you need to dress well

Hence, Donald Trump's personality can be seen in the way that he works and makes his money. He has a lot of common sense. He also has a lot of marketing and branding power, as can be seen from the TV series and the beauty paegeants that he organises and hosts. Clearly, Donald Trump is proof that his money making system works - it is about applying solid common sense to making money, with a no nonsense approach with a clear mind, as well as branding, marketing and advertising oneself and one's organisation. If it works for him, then these skills and thoughts may be worth trying out and may be worth considering seriously.

More to come on Donald Trump in the next post, here on my ideas site, on ideas on how to make money by looking at successful billionaires and successful businessmen, and their methods on how to become rich.

Ideas on how to get rich!