Archive View (February 2007)

Welcome to EntrepreneurshipWeek USA, a week-long celebration of entrepreneurial vitality in America. When you want to encourage the entrepreneurs of tomorrow, the place to start is with kids. That’s why on the morning of Friday, March 2nd, members of the Trump University staff and faculty will join me to present a special program about entrepreneurship for elementary-school students at Brooklyn College’s Community Partnership Campus in Bushwick, Brooklyn. The students will get some first-hand advice about how to start their own companies. There will be presents and prizes for every kid in the audience - and even the possibility that a celebrity or two more...

“I have been doing great during the recent slump,” a Michigan-based developer named Jonathan told me recently. “I buy, renovate and resell one and two-family residential houses in inner cities. Other developers ignore these properties and prefer to work in more upscale locales. But there are many solid families in inner cities that are eager to own their first homes and live the American dream.” That’s the kind of niche-oriented thinking that can keep sound real estate investing strong in slow markets. Smart investors are making profits in other niches properties like these: Rental properties near colleges and universities that attract students and faculty more...

In nearly every workplace, there’s “one bad apple” - someone whose negative attitude is so apparent that it’s a deterrent to everyone else in the office. It turns out that the old adage is true. One bad apple can truly spoil the whole barrel. A person with a negative attitude can spread those negative feelings like a dangerous virus, bringing down the rest of the office and destroying an otherwise healthy and well-functioning team. A new study from researchers at the University of Washington examined conflict in the workplace. It found that negative behavior has much more of an impact than positive behavior more...

Trump University is launching a new blog, Mark and Rick’s Real Estate Adventures. I’d encourage you to visit this new blog today, and every day, because it is going to offer a wild and educational ride through the world of real estate. Let me fill you in about how the blog came to be. Mark Covais and Rick Meadows, the young men behind it, met when they started working as admissions counselors at Trump University. Rick was already a successful entrepreneur who had owned several businesses. Mark had led college and university admissions teams for six years and before that, he was more...

Back in 1997, a copper pipe burst in the wall of one of my properties. My plumber and I tore the wall open. He patched the leak. I let the hole stay open for about a month before I closed it up again. I repainted the room and moved on to the next job. Then a few of my friends started asking me questions. Had I left the wall oven long enough to let the area behind it really dry, they wanted to know? Had I sprayed behind the wall with bleach to kill mold spores? Why didn’t I get an expert more...

Do a simple experiment this morning. Go to the search engine of your choice and search for the term “businesses for sale.” You are going to be astonished by what you find. Businesses are changing hands at an amazing rate in virtually every area of the United States, and thousands of attractive businesses are available. There are publishing companies, bicycle shops, Internet service providers, restaurants and just about any other kind of enterprise you can name. Many of them are available at very attractive prices. But let me give you a word of caution. Before you pick up the phone and more...

People engaged in some truly bizarre behavior on The Apprentice this week. Both teams toured the malls where they would stage their Priceline.com promotions. Both teams noticed that many of the consumers in those malls were Spanish-speaking. But not one person on either team took the obvious step of saying, “Look, we need Spanish-speaking presenters here. Let’s hire some!” Everybody saw the challenge, but nobody spoke up - not one person. That is incredible to me. And by the time Aimee’s team got to the boardroom firing, team behavior had become even more bizarre. Aimee said that she noticed that many of more...

Reflections on The Apprentice Episode Six Something incredible happened in last night’s episode. After Aimee and her team lost their task, she got together with Jenn, another member of her team - and revealed her plan to attack Jenn in the boardroom the next day! And then Jenn, who was probably trying to be honorable, said, “Well if you say that bad thing about me, then I am going to say this about you.” And she laid out her entire strategy. During that conversation, they both gave away any competitive advantage that they might have enjoyed in the boardroom firing session. And more...

It’s no big news that there are a lot of single people in the world hoping to hook up with that special someone. Some of them join dating services. Some go online. Some ask friends to fix them up on blind dates. A group of lonely Welsh farmers came up with an interesting idea. They put singles ads on milk cartons with their photos and the slogan, “Fancy a farmer?” The single farmers say that they don’t meet many people of the opposite sex. It’s no wonder. They spend their days out in the countryside feeding, milking and cleaning up after cows. I hope more...

If you have any desire to be in business for yourself, then now’s the time to make your move! In fact, there has never been a better time to take that step. So this year, buy yourself the greatest gift of all - a business of your own! Over the past year, I’ve met and spoken with thousands of people worldwide who have reached the point where they’ve said, “enough is enough!” Most hate their jobs. They are terribly uncertain about the future. They’re tired of busting their butts with little or no thanks and they’ve finally realized that controlling their own more...

Is your company healthy or unhealthy? One of the easiest, most effective ways to answer that question is to create a classic balance sheet for your company’s business plan. It is a simple document to put together, yet it can reveal small “illnesses” in your business that will lead to larger problems later on. A balance sheet is really a snapshot that shows the financial condition of your company, as expressed by its net worth: The net worth of your business = Assets - Liabilities Assets are everything that is owned by your business, plus everything that is owed to you. Assets include property owned, more...

A Trump University student told me that ten years ago, she started a business that failed after four years. Now she is with us, acquiring the knowledge she needs to be a successful entrepreneur the second time around. Just a few hours into the course, she learned an important lesson. “Even though my business lasted four years,” she says, “I made mistakes that killed it before I even opened my doors.” The right kind of planning during the earliest stages can make or break a business. This morning I’d like to lay bare some of the mistakes that kill new businesses fast. Mistake #1: Failing to more...

With this blog post, Trump University welcomes Sean Yazbeck, winner of The Apprentice Season Five, as a new member of the Trump University faculty. Let’s hear Sean’s views on last night’s episode. The leaders of both teams faced a deceptively simple task last night. What could be more straightforward than putting honey in bottles and selling it? Yet both Aaron and Aimee, leaders of the Arrow and Kinetic teams, proved too weak to lead their teams to achieve optimal results. Here are the lessons that you and I can take away and apply in our own careers. Great leaders exert firm control more...

Recently on The Apprentice, I had to ask a member of the winning team Kinetic to volunteer to go to the losing team, Arrow. I was mildly surprised when I saw how many people were willing to risk making the move. Instead of staying on the safe winning team, they offered to move to the other team which was, pretty much, a wreck. I think it showed how many people were good leaders and wanted to show off their abilities. As long as they were on the winning team they couldn’t take a leadership role. On the losing team, there was more of more...

Lessons from Anson Hall, entrepreneur When Anson Hall sold his successful GM dealership in Massachusetts and tried to retire, it didn’t work. After building his business from the ground up and adding Pontiac and Cadillac to his original Buick line in the process, relaxation just didn’t agree with him. Anson had already stretched the limits with GM by starting a company-within-a-company that offered one of the first extended-care warranty programs anywhere. With that kind of experience under his belt, he decided that it was time to start the kind of business where he could call the shots. “Rest is rust,” he says. And who would more...

Attention Trump University Community:  It has come to our attention that an online marketer crossed the spam line while using the Trump name and appearing to promote our programs.   This online marketer was not working under our approval or direction.  Trump University is against spam and practices only permission-based marketing. Spam is not our style, nor does it represent what Trump University is all about. Yes we want to spread the word about Trump University, but we avoid aggressively pushing our offerings to individuals who are not interested in our products.  We are in the process of rectifying this situation as more...

A power strategy from the pages of George H. Ross’s book, Trump Strategies for Real Estate George Ross, Senior Counsel for The Trump Organization, is a formidable negotiator and businessman. In his book Trump Strategies for Real Estate, he sets out this simple strategy that can actually make banks eager to lend you money, whether you are buying a building or funding a business. Entrepreneurs and real estate investors usually don’t apply for loans until they are already involved in a deal of some kind. Since they need funding fast, they walk into a bank, meet with a loan officer they have never more...

Is it a great time for real estate investing? Or is it a terrible time? Today and every day, those are difficult questions to answer. Some things are bad about the current market ... we’ve all read that housing starts are down and that there are many houses sitting unsold on the market. But we are getting a very mixed message. Just last week, the Mortgage Bankers Association predicted a strengthening market by mid-2007. Of course, that’s good. So is it a good time to invest, or a bad time? I have a simple answer. It is a good time for real estate investing.. more...

One of the biggest challenges candidates face on The Apprentice is managing difficult teammates. Even the most talented of project managers often struggles when he or she has to lead individuals who are disliked or disruptive. It drains energy from the rest of the group and it can make the work environment a divisive one. Recently, a combative candidate Marisa was blamed for the downfall of her winning team. She fought ... perhaps too strongly ... for her own ideas and, in the process, alienated and annoyed the rest of her teammates. When it came time to point fingers for the team’s more...

Donald Trump is back with a new book. In Trump 101, The Way to Success, the real estate magnate who became a legendary figure in the business world pulled yet more advice and hints from his hat for those who dream of professional success, and who knows, maybe accumulate a few $million, or $billion along the way. And as always happens when a book of this nature reaches the stands, the question everyone asks is: Is it really possible to learn something from a book like this? I may be able to answer that question by speaking a little of my own more...

When you investigate properties to buy, look ahead. What will their neighborhoods look like in the years and decades to come? Take a close look at what needs improving, because the problems you see are opportunities. The more of them you can correct, the faster your property values will soar.  With the help of other property owners in the area, you can make improvements like these: Improve traffic patterns. Would a stoplight, a revised parking plan or a new arrangement of one-way streets be an improvement? Would closing off some streets or making them dead-ends make it harder for motorists to speed more...