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
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!
