Archive View (August 2006)

Information that can change your life from our free special report, The 10 Golden Rules for Buying a Business.  If you spend any time on this blog, you'll soon catch the excitement about starting your own business. Entrepreneurship is so hot here, it's like a bonfire. Today, I'd like to throw a new log onto that fire for you to consider. It's another kind of entrepreneurship: buying a business. I've been buying and selling businesses all my life. I actually started my first when I was 12 and sold it when I was 13 - a true story. Since then, I have bought more more...

Wealth-generating secrets from our free special report, The 10 Golden Rules for Buying a Business Owning a business is, without question, your best path to riches. And buying an established and thriving business can be the quickest way to achieve that success. In today's business climate, buying a business can be a much better option than starting one from scratch or buying a franchise, where your upside may be severely restricted. Before acquiring a business, you can review its past performance. You can negotiate on price. You will save on the costs of new equipment and staffing. On your first day of ownership, a more...

Remember not long ago when Paul and Heather McCartney announced they were getting divorced and they said they would split "amicably" for the sake of their children? Well the gloves are off and things are getting nasty. Recently, Paul changed the locks on his London mansion and froze their joint bank account. He even issued a legal letter claiming that his soon-to-be-ex removed three bottles of cleaning fluid from his home. I'm not sure why that matters, but the accusation went public. In court documents, Paul claims that Heather was "argumentative" and "rude to the staff" during their four-year marriage. But, because they had more...

As Executive Editor at Trump University, I watch "The Apprentice" every week on NBC and write the weekly "Lessons Learned" articles for NBC's Apprentice page. I have now watched two seasons and analyzed every episode from a business journalist's perspective. And even though I don't know the name of a single Apprentice candidate in the season that kicks off next January, I'm here to predict who the winner will be. Man or woman? People tell me that a woman is bound to win next season, because Randall and Sean won the last two seasons. That's bunk. Next season's winner will again be someone more...

Winning strategies from The Real Estate Investor Training ProgramArticles and news stories everywhere today are reporting the grim newsthat huge numbers of houses are sitting on the market unsold. And the problem exists virtually everywhere in America.Make no mistake about it. Itis much harder to sell a house today than it was a year ago. Now, what is the first thing that most real estate investors do when they want to sell a property in a glutted market? Most often, they do cosmetic fix-ups. If a property looks better than others that are available, or if it has better features, it more...

Carol, who owns a successful gardening store, launched a Website last year to sell her garden supplies directly to consumers. She hired a designer to build a good-looking site for her. But after a few weeks, she noticed that only a trickle of people were visiting her site every day. So Carol signed up with a pay-per-click Internet advertising service and within a few days, dozens of people were coming to her site every day. That seemed positive until a month later, Carol realized that she had just spent $3,354 for pay-for-click advertising that generated only $24 in sales. "A lady in Illinois more...

Recently, I happened to read about the 79-year-old grandmother in Atlanta who was convicted of killing her 85-year-old former boyfriend. Lena Sims Driskell was sentenced to life in prison for shooting Herman Winslow to death. Lena said she killed Herman - her boyfriend of 14 months - because she was convinced he was cheating on her. According to media accounts, she shot him four times in the temple with an antique handgun. Holding the still-smoking murder weapon in her hand, she confessed to the police by saying, "I did it . . . and I'd do it again!" Obviously, that made it a more...

The most valuable asset owned by Microsoft, IBM and Coca-Cola can't be found in their warehouses. Their most precious holding is their brand. In fact, based on information from Business Week and Forbes, I would estimate that 50 percent to 80 percent of the market value of major consumer corporations resides in their brands. What is true for those large organizations holds true for small companies too. Your brand represents a tremendous amount of the value that you build as you grow your business. The stronger your brand, the greater the return you will get from your enterprise.Don't expect your brand more...

Has all the talk about a "down market" scared you away from real estate investing? If so, I'd urge you to take a look around. Many, many investors are making a fortune in the current market. If you stop hiding and start investing, you can learn to create wealth too. Here are four strategies that can help you create wealth - and a lot of it -in today's flat market: Down Market Strategy #1: Explore overlooked niches. This is a good time for wealth creation by investing in "fixer-uppers," of course. But it is also a positive climate for investing in small apartment houses, more...

Industrial-strength intelligence for entrepreneurs who need fundingIf you think it's hard to get a "yes" out of a venture capitalist, you should try to get a conclusive "no." This is because there's no upside to communicating a negative decision. To foster greater understanding between entrepreneurs and venture capitalists, here is an exposé of the top lies of venture capitalists."I liked your company, but my partners didn't." The sponsor is trying to get the entrepreneur to believe is that he's the good guy, the smart guy, the guy who gets it while the "others" didn't, so don't blame him. This is a more...

Just when it looked like teenagers finally got the message about how horrible smoking is, things are taking a turn for the worse. The steady decline in teen smoking in the country is at a standstill. About one in four high school students smokes. For the longest time, teen smoking was dropping. All that anti-smoking advertising was paying off. Kids realized that not only was smoking no longer cool, but it also was a stupid, dangerous habit. But now the progress has stopped. States are no longer spending a lot of money on anti-smoking campaigns. Meanwhile, tobacco companies have spent billions on cigarette more...

Property-selling wizardry from the Trump University facultyThe primary reason to advertise a property is to sell it. But there is another reason for advertising too. It is to generate a database of potential buyers for properties you will sell in the months and years to come. This secondary advertising activity is especially important today. Properties are not selling as quickly as they were a year ago. If you have a database of prospective buyers and know what they are looking for, you can sell your properties more quickly. And moving properties faster saves you money in taxes, insurance and other costs more...

Recently former Tyco CEO Dennis Kozlowski was convicted for stealing hundreds of millions of dollars from the company. It was his second go-round in court--the first one ended in a mistrial. You may remember Mr. Kozlowski from the original trial. A video of his lavish party on an Italian island, allegedly paid for with company funds, was last year's high profile corporate scandal. The retrial was a more low-key affair, but it served to remind us of how much business corruption there has been over the past few years. The people at the forefront of these squalid affairs give business a more...

If you ask 10 people to name the greatest business thinker of the last century, I am willing to bet that at least eight of them, and maybe all 10, will pick Peter Drucker.There's a very good reason. Drucker invented the modern science of management in 1954 when he wrote The Practice of Management. When he later wrote The Effective Executive in 1965, he set the course for thousands of books about executive excellence that followed. Drucker consistently anticipated the future - an ability that stayed with him undiminished until he passed away last year at the age of 95. In more...

"Your reputation is what people use to judge your worthiness for career advancement. You must take aggressive action to protect it."No matter how good, honest or full of integrity you are in your career, accusations of misconduct or mistakes will come your way, particularly if you're ambitious. When they do, you can't sit back and do nothing. If it looks like your reputation may suffer a hit, it is time to apply a candid, clear, focused and firm approach to address the situation and accuser. If that advice sounds serious, it is. Your reputation is what people use to judge your more...

Trump University Faculty   Thousands of years ago Solomon wrote in Ecclesiastes, "There's nothing new under the sun." Was he right? Depending on your frame of reference, we might agree wholeheartedly that nothing changes. People still care most today about the same things they cared about then: what they eat, who they marry, what they buy, what they wear. They called it vanity then, and we call it vanity today. But if we look into the big picture, we can see that everything changes. Can we ignore thousands of years of human innovation, technical progress, scientific understanding? And what about our cell phones, more...

Radical wealth-creating advice from the Trump University classroom. If you've been watching the news and listening to your friends, you're probably convinced this is a terrible time for real estate investing. Interest rates are up, housing sales are down, properties are overvalued. The "bubble" is about to burst. Let me share this quote with you . . . "The prices of houses seem to have reached a plateau, and there is reasonable expectancy that prices will decline." That statement could have been written last week, but the fact is, it was written in Time Magazine on December 1, 1947. Too bad for the people who more...

Because of the movie, "The Devil Wears Prada,"a lot of people have been talking about horrific bosses. It seems as if everyone has a story about a terrible boss that made going to work seem like a living hell. Despite what you may think, I happen to believe that I'm a pretty good boss. Maybe some of my employees might disagree with that, but I doubt that they'd have the courage to tell me to my face. In any event, they sure better not have entered me in the Bad Boss contest sponsored by the Working America web site. Some of those entries more...

Secrets of Websites that Sell With tens of millions of users surfing the Web daily for more than simple browsing, there is a good reason for the explosion of business-to-business and business-to-consumer sites. The Internet is simply a great place to sell. The problem is, you can pay to advertise on high-volume traffic sites or on search engines and attract a lot of visitors to your site - and still have no guarantee of sales. When people arrive at your site, it should get them to buy something. That's why the effectiveness of your site hinges on its conversion-to-sales ratio: If many of your visitors more...

Competitive wisdom from the new book, Trump University Marketing 101 Treasure your competitors. Accept the fact that you need them. They keep you tough. Your competitors really are good for you, provided that you deal with them strategically and wisely. If you answer these four questions carefully about your competitors, you will become vastly more competitive and successful in the marketplace: 1. Who are your competitors? Sometimes it is obvious who your competitors are. For example, you run a landscaping service and there are other landscapers in your area. But far more often, it takes work to tell who your competitors are, or who more...

Life-changing insights from The Entrepreneurship Mastery Program I have the privilege of being Trump University's professor for The Entrepreneurship Mastery Program, the new class that met for the first time this week. In a moment, I will share a truly remarkable quote from Amy Frankel, the guest lecturer for our first session, Understanding the Entrepreneurial Mindset. But before I tell you what she said, let me tell you about Amy. For more than 20 years she worked in marketing for major corporations, working her way up to several marketing directorships. She then left to work for advertising and marketing agencies so she could master more...

If you're in business, do you think your employees are loyal to you and to your company? You probably think they're pretty faithful. But are you really and truly sure? I'm sure the executives at Coca-Cola are still reeling over the secretary who was accused of trying to sell company trade secrets to the competitors over at Pepsi. Fortunately, the executives at Pepsi were honorable and immediately turned her in. She and her accomplices were busted and now face some serious charges. The case has made Coke and other corporations re-evaluate how to keep sensitive company information safe. It has also made them more...

What's the most profitable investment you can make? Some people would tell you it's the stock market. Other people would point to mutual funds, precious metals or municipal bonds. Make no mistake, all those investments can offer you a great payback. But there is another investment that promises far greater rewards. I am talking about investing in yourself. Dollar for dollar, investing in your own education promises vastly greater wealth creation compared to any other investment you can name: Appreciation that outpaces any stock. Education unlocks your wealth creation potential. It lets you earn bigger paychecks, negotiate more lucrative deals, acquire more valuable properties and more...