Trump: How to Get Rich

Convincing others has a lot to do with understanding negotiation. Study the art of persuasion. Practice it. Develop an understanding of its profound value across all aspects of life.

Don’t expect people to believe your blarney simply because you’re good at delivering it. The boardroom is not the pub down on the corner.

Make it easy on the people you are trying to convince. Give them readily accessible metaphors and analogies. If you are too far over their heads, they’ll feel frustrated or, worse, inferior. Let them know you’re all on the same level in some way. Use humor. It’s a great icebreaker. I sometimes tell people that I wish our meeting had been yesterday, because I was having a great hair day and they missed it!

Convincing other people of how wonderful you are and how lofty your ideas are is a good way to convince them to tune out or, better yet, to escape from you as soon as possible. We all need to have a healthy dose of confidence to be convincing, but don’t bulldoze. If you do, you may see a lot of people in front of you at first, but the room will soon be empty.

As the adage goes, There’s a fine line between acceptance and resignation. You want people to accept your ideas, not merely be resigned to them because they think they can’t fight back or are just plain exhausted by you. Don’t browbeat them into believing you. Let them think the decision is theirs. It will give them a feeling of control.

Here is the golden rule of negotiating:

• He who has the gold makes the rules.

• If you walk into a negotiation and know nothing about the other party, let them talk, listen to their tone, observe their body language, and determine whether they really want to make a deal or just show you how smart they are.

• Most negotiations should proceed calmly, rather than in a hostile manner. However, sometimes a negotiation works best after a few screams and some table pounding.

• The best negotiators are chameleons. Their attitude, demeanor, approach, and posture in a negotiation will depend on the person on the other side of the table.

• If the other party to the transaction wants to acquire something you own, let them convince you that you really don’t want it or need it. In doing so, they’ll convince you of just how badly they want it.

• Money is not always the only consideration for exchange in the sale of an asset. Think beyond the traditional boundaries.

• Learn the value of saying no. View any conflict as an opportunity.

• Most important, know the party on the other side of the table before sitting down with them. Research who you’re dealing with, how they negotiate, and what they want from you.

Now you’re ready to deal. The following stories illustrate these basic rules.

^{The Trump Building at 40 Wall Street.}

Consider What the Other Side Wants

One of the best deals I ever made was the acquisition of the tallest building in lower Manhattan, a 1.3-million-square-foot landmark known as 40 Wall Street.

I got it for $1 million, and the negotiation was all about timing and intuition.

In the 1960s and 1970s, 40 Wall Street was truly a hot property—a fully occupied building. Then in the 1980s, it was bought by Ferdinand Marcos, who was busy dealing with a revolution in the Philippines. The skyscraper at 40 Wall Street fell into decline, proving once again that a business should never be run by a dictator, especially a real one about to be booted from power.

Then the Resnicks, a prominent real estate family, descended on 40 Wall Street, but after a long period of negotiation, it became clear that the Resnicks and Citibank weren’t going to make a deal and that 40 Wall Street would be back on the block. I wanted very much at this time to make my move, but this was in the early 1990s and I was in no position to do so. The real estate market was terrible, and my own financial straits were woeful.

The next buyer was the Kinson Company, a group from Hong Kong. They made a great deal, and after the purchase was complete, I requested a meeting with them to discuss a possible partnership. They weren’t interested in a partnership, but they did want to make 40 Wall Street the downtown equivalent of Trump Tower, including a public atrium. It sounded like a beautiful idea. However, what they would do with the steel columns that supported a seventy-two-story building never seemed to enter their minds. I was dumbfounded.

As you can probably guess, the Kinson group proved to be relatively clueless about renovating, running, and leasing out a New York City skyscraper. They weren’t in the real estate business to begin with—they were mostly in apparel—and they were in way over their heads. They poured tens of millions of dollars into the building but were getting nowhere. They had problems with tenants, contractors, suppliers, architects, even the owners of the land, a prominent family from Germany, the Hinnebergs. Eventually, Kinson wanted out, and they called me.