Archive View (October 2006)

You've read the new stories. Record numbers of houses are sitting on the market unsold. Prices have sagged. New housing starts in October 2006 fell 17.9 percent behind October 2005. And to make the situation worse, interest rates are high enough to scare away buyers. When you add up all those factors, it becomes clear that this is no time to expect to sell properties quickly for top dollar. That, in short, is why it's time to set aside the "fix and flip" approach for  real estate investing until the current market turns around. But some strategies allow you to not only outperform the more...

Why is Madonna jumping on the celebrity foreign baby adoption bandwagon?Meg Ryan adopted a baby girl from China. Ewan McGregor adopted a child from Mongolia. And, of course, there's the poster mother for foreign adoptions - Angelina Jolie - who has one child from Cambodia and one from Ethiopia.Now Madonna is trying to adopt a baby boy from Africa.Don't get me wrong. I think it's great that celebrities are calling attention to the plight of all these children in poverty-stricken countries. It raises the profile of the countries and of adoption in general.But the situation sure invites criticism. Often, it can more...

We have a lot in common. We both started reading books about real estate when most of our fellow students were only thinking about buying cool cars.After we graduated college, we pursued our real estate dreams in different ways. Gary put his energy behind acquiring properties, while Donald gravitated toward development. But when we got together last year to work on the book Trump University Real Estate 101, we learned that we shared some common traits. In sum, they could be termed The Trump Mindset for Real Estate Success. It is a mindset that is explained in depth in that book.What more...

Just how bad is the current real estate investing market? It is difficult to say. Last week, a story on Fox News reported that "The pace of U.S. home building unexpectedly strengthened in September as new housing starts rose 5.9 percent." However, a story in Mortgage News Daily emphasized that despite that uptick, new housing starts are still running 17.9 percent behind where they were one year ago. So what is the best way to play the current market? Here's a summary of advice I'm hearing from the Trump University faculty. Take advantage of the strong buyer's market. There are many areas of the more...

Skillful execution of the things that matter is one of the success principles I stress in my book 4 Secrets of High Performing Organizations. "The things that matter" are the key words in the preceding statement. The things that matter vary from business to business. A case study I'd like to discuss today is Cucina Colore, an Italian restaurant in Cherry Creek North in Denver. What matters in a restaurant? Good food and good service certainly. But these days, good food and good service are a given for any restaurant just to remain in business. The food at Cucina Colore is more...

Not that long ago I talked about a new study that found more and more women are becoming addicted to Botox. Now I read that men are fueling a boom in cosmetic surgery and other treatments. Apparently, it's not just women who are vain. The most popular procedures men request are getting ridding of the bags under their eyes, erasing wrinkles and getting treatments for baldness. Men who have had cosmetic treatments say that in the workplace any advantage helps. And looking young, in many instances, makes them feel like they have an edge over their competition. Surprisingly, it's men in their 30s who seem more...

The world is full of well-intentioned people who are eager to offer you advice about investing in real estate. But do they know what they are talking about? Do they possess the experience, expertise and current information needed to advise you intelligently? If not, their advice can do a lot of harm.For example, if your lawyer sister hasn't seen a real estate contract since she took the Real Property 101 course in law school 10 years ago, she's not the person you need to review your purchase agreement.So how do you find the best advice? You hire the best lawyer, accountant more...

What belongs in an electronic classroom? After all, we're talking about a virtual learning space, not a room with blackboards and desks. Not every e-learning class will offer all of the features I'm about to describe. But the more of them you get for your educational dollar, the better. Does the class include a variety of media? A mixed-format course lets you learn in different ways through the day. While you are at your computer, you can learn online. In your car, you can listen to a CD. Over lunch, you can read a workbook. (Printed materials still have a place more...

Data from the U. S. Census and other sources tell us that people with college degrees usually earn more money than people who don't have them. But no matter how hard you scour the Internet, you won't find any statistics aboutthe growing number of self-educated entrepreneurs who are joining the ranks of the supremely successful. Some of them have college degrees, some don't. It doesn't matter that much. A combination of knowledge and ambition propels them into the ranks of the extremely wealthy.A good place to study these new achievers, and find inspiration, is Entrepreneur Magazine's Young Millionaires 2006 list. There more...

An exclusive look between the covers of our new book, Why We Want You to Be Rich Why We Want You To Be Rich: Two Men, One Message describes a path to wealth that you won't find in other books. We'd like to share some of our unusual advice today on the Trump blog. You Need to Live Well to Get Rich Most financial authors advise people to live below their means. One actually recommends taking your daily cappuccino money and investing it in mutual funds instead. We don't like that advice. It means living below your means. We believe in expanding your means more...

I recently went to war with the City Council in Rancho Palos Verdes, California, over - of all things - an American flag and a flagpole. I have a 70-foot flagpole with a gorgeous American flag waving over my Trump National Golf Club. I thought it was the epitome of patriotism. Apparently, some members of City Council thought otherwise. They tried to get me to take down the flag, saying it was too tall. When they voted on it, two of the five members of City Council actually voted against letting the flag fly. Personally, I don't understand how they could do that. They more...

Success-building secrets from The Entrepreneurship Mastery ProgramI recently spent an evening listening to classroom activity in our Entrepreneurship Mastery Program. What a session! Students were calling in. Tim Goertel, Vice President of Strategic Insight for Reed Exhibitions, was helping them determine whether their business ideas could make it in the marketplace. And Beth Polish, professor for the course, was using her keen mind to move the discussion along. It was such a great session that I started taking notes that I will share with you in this post.So, can your business idea make it in the marketplace? To understand your chances more...

It takes more than salespeople to assure your long-term success. You have started a new company. Now how are you going write a business plan to get customers to open their wallets and spend their money on what you have to sell? If your answer to that question was, "I'll hire a sales staff" or, "I'll start advertising," you are thinking like most entrepreneurs. Those are good ideas, because you need to start triggering buying behavior among your target consumers. However, you need something else too. You need strategic marketing, because selling or advertising alone will not assure your success in the long more...

Life-changing advice from The Wealth Builder's Blueprint Donald J. Trump, like many top achievers, stresses the importance of thinking big. He is absolutely right, because big thinking creates vastly more success than small thinking, every time. That's all well and fine, you say. But what are the practical steps that lead you to stop thinking small and start thinking big? First, set immense objectives for your success Let's say that you have designed a new software program that you are about to take to market. Why not start very big by deciding that you will sell $100 million worth of your program? Because that goal is more...

When it comes to kids' parties, parents are clueless about the amount of alcohol and drugs that are available.Half of teenagers say that alcohol, drugs or both are available at nearly every party they attend. However, according to a new survey, 80 percent of parents believe their teens are attending substance-free parties. Obviously, someone is getting some bad information . . . and it's the parentsParents are living in a dream world if they think their kids aren't being exposed to alcohol and drugs. Right now, eight out of 10 kids are going to drink before they get out of high more...

"Diligence is the mother of good luck." - Benjamin Franklin I've always been big on quotes, whether they're mine or someone else's, because very often they distill ideas down to their essence. What Ben Franklin said many years ago could have been said today, because it's relevant and right on. We've all heard about doing our "due diligence," which is another way of being thorough. It's also the first step to bringing yourself some good luck. What Gary Player, the great golfer, said "The harder I work, the luckier I get", remains solid nutshell advice that can apply to everyone. I am currently more...

Even though the term Benefit Advantage may not sound too exciting, it is what you absolutely need to have to beat your competitors in the marketplace. It is the heart of your marketing strategy.Your benefit advantage is . . . The reason your customers should buy from you instead of from your competitorsTo work for you, your benefit advantage needs three key elements:Clarity - Pin down a few of your key benefits that are easy to understand and communicate. Jiffy-Lube, for example, became successful by offering fast oil changes without the need for an appointment.Relevance to your customers - Your benefits more...

  "Eleven Companies Changing the World," an article in the September 20 issue of Business 2.0, profiles some of the most agile and aggressive young entrepreneurs out there today. If you want to take a page from their book and get your enterprise on the map fast, it is worth knowing what they are doing: Tariq Krim began offering easily customizable start pages through his Netvibes startup in September, 2005. The enterprise is growing fast and should have 15 million users by the end of 2006. When Krim was 12, he hacked into France's Minitel computer system and built a messaging application for more...

The last few weeks have been tough for CEOs. Patricia Dunn resigned as the Chairperson of Hewlett Packard. The pretexting scandal - that arose from her spying on her board members- got out of hand. Peter Dolan was fired as CEO of Bristol Myers Squibb. Mr. Dolan was running a company that was already in hot water - operating under a deferred prosecution agreement with the US Attorney - and sanctioned actions in which BMS overloaded wholesalers with inventory to meet quarterly sales targets.To paraphrase an old hamburger commercial, where's the ethics?In my book 4 Secrets of High Performing Organizations, I more...

I know a lot of men who are perfectly happy being single. They have every excuse in the world why they're not ready to get married. I thought I had heard everything until I read why Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie say they won't be tying the knot anytime soon. In an interview in the current issue of Esquire magazine, Brad said he and Angelina won't consider getting married until - quote - "everyone else in the country who wants to be married is legally able." Obviously, Brad is trying to be a social activist and make a point about dropping the restrictions on more...