This Issue: Your Own Company Is Your Road To Riches

I’ve often said that business is a relay race. All team members must be fast, focused, and able to coordinate with each other. Each member has to know how to run with and pass the baton. No runner can lag behind or the entire team will suffer.

Someone who once analyzed my negotiating technique concluded that I had an advantage because I got to the point faster than everyone else. He said that while my adversaries were formulating their sentences, I had finished writing the book. I cut straight to the point because, before I speak, I map out the deal in my mind. I understand exactly what I need, what I want, how I want to proceed, and how far I’ll go.

When you watch The Apprentice, notice how candidates who present facts most succinctly stand out. This season, for example, Surya’s teammates are frustrated with him because he gives long, drawn-out explanations every time he speaks. Nobody wants to listen to five-minute discourses that could have been said in 15 or 20 seconds.

Long speeches are a red flag to my advisors and me. We don’t have time for verbose dialogues and we certainly won’t hire people who can’t promptly make their points.

For more ways to achieve success in the world, investigate The Entrepreneurship Mastery Program from Trump University. Classes are forming now. 

When you think of becoming an entrepreneur, you probably think about all the hard work it will take. Hopefully you also envision all the benefits, such as wealth, freedom, and a sense of personal accomplishment and significance that comes along with owning your own business.

But have you also thought about how efficient an entrepreneurship really is? If not, think about these benefits.

• Time leveraging. All the time you invest in your business is directed at building your own wealth and resources. No more sitting in meetings working on projects that have nothing to do with your own goals. No more killing yourself to make money for the company you work for, not for yourself. When you own a company, your work benefits you. That is simply a more efficient way to generate wealth.
• Capital growth. The profits you generate get rolled back into building your own enterprise, not someone else’s. It’s like getting interest on your interest instead of throwing your money away.
• Smarter, more committed colleagues. You no longer have to spend years working with people whose inefficiency drives you mad, because you are in control.
• A wide range of financial options. You enjoy tax deductions, depreciation of equipment and other benefits that you cannot take advantage of when you are working for someone else.

Of course, becoming an entrepreneur is challenging. There are risks. But would you rather control your own destiny, or have someone else control it for you?

The answer to that question is obvious. When you are ready to take the next step, Trump University is here to help. Our Entrepreneurship Mastery Program is a great way to minimize risk and start a thriving enterprise of your own.

 Michael Sexton interviews Thomas L. Harrison, author of Instinct: Tapping Your Entrepreneurial DNA to Achieve Your Business Goals

Thomas L. Harrison might be America’s most unusual CEO. He began his career as a research scientist and cell biologist. As the pull of entrepreneurship became stronger and stronger for him, he finally hung up his lab coat and plunged into the world of business. Today, he is Chairman and CEO of Omnicom Group’s Diversified Agency Services, the world’s largest holding group of marketing services companies.

Harrison’s deep insight into parallel disciplines - genetics, psychology, and management, to name just a few - led him to write Instinct: Tapping Your Entrepreneurial DNA to Achieve Your Business Goals In this book, he maps a strategy for using knowledge of your own genetic makeup to achieve success.

In the conversation that follows, Trump University’s President Michael Sexton talks with Harrison about the link between DNA and success.

Michael Sexton: Is there really such a thing as entrepreneurial DNA?

Thomas L. Harrison: I believe there is. As a cell biologist and physiologist, I noticed many years ago that certain people possess particular traits that allow them to become successful more easily than other people can.

Now, that doesn’t mean that other people can’t be successful. They can! In fact, my book is really about helping people identify where they might lack a little DNA-given entrepreneurial talent. Once they know where their strengths and weaknesses are, they can work to develop the skills they need to get to the top.

MS: What is the first thing you notice when you see someone with great entrepreneurial DNA?

TLH: The most visible thing is the ability to handle risk, which really means two things. First the comfort to take risks; and second, the ability to manage risks. Those skills come much more easily to entrepreneurs than they do to others. They are the foundation of success.

MS: How can you understand your own genetic odds of success and what you need to work on?

TLH: You need to look at how strong or weak you are in what I call the Five Genetic Personality Traits: 

1. Openness to Experience - Your receptiveness to new experiences and ideas.
2. Conscientiousness - Your ability to overcome impulsiveness and achieve goals.
3. Extroversion - Your level of ease in seeking out other people and connecting with them.
4. Agreeableness - Your ability to cooperate with other people.
5. Neuroticism - Your habitual reactions to the stresses of life.

The first chapter of my book includes an Entrepreneurial Personality Quiz that helps readers understand how they stack up in those areas. In later chapters, people use the results of that quiz to counterbalance any weak areas. Instinct does not provide a “one size fits all” prescription for success, but provides a personalized roadmap, based on one’s genetically inherited success and personality traits.

People tell me that my book, which provides both a tool for self-analysis and guidelines for addressing specific shortcomings, is practical and unique. It works!

MS: And to succeed, you need to have those traits working at equal strength?

TLH: Strongly, yes, but not necessarily equally. Different strengths create different personalities. After all, Donald Trump and Richard Branson are both successful entrepreneurs, but nobody would say that they have similar styles or outlooks.

MS: Can you tell me about the Picture Painting Gene, one of the eight critical success genes that you describe in your book? Is that a gene that helps successful people visualize their own success?

TLH: It is. The Picture Painting Gene is a turned-on ability to see yourself in success. In their minds before competitions, top athletes play and replay images of how they will perform. Not want to . . . but will perform. In great detail, they visualize how they will run their sprints, perform their backstrokes and win their marathons. And they win, because they have visualized themselves as winners.

Of all the Eight Success Promoters I describe in my book, the Picture Painting gene is one of the most important. If you can’t visualize yourself as successful, you’re not going to get there. But visualize success, and you’ll focus, move forward and attract people and events around you that will help you get to success. The success that fits your personal, genetic makeup.

For more insights on turning your entrepreneurial potential into real-world success, get involved in The Entrepreneurship Mastery Program from Trump University. Classes are forming now.

After you’ve launched your business, the day will come when it is time to start knocking on doors and selling.

When that day comes, your first inclination will probably be to dash out to buy every book you can find about selling. If you can absorb all the powerful advice they contain from their powerful-looking authors, you will be moving your product quickly, right? Well maybe yes. But probably not. 

You see, attempting to identify the traits of the perfect salesperson is a waste of time. All you need is to understand your own strengths and perfect them. I’ve been the top salesperson at every company where I’ve ever worked. I’ve won awards, grossed the highest profits and opened a lot of doors. And I did this by being true to myself  - by understanding my instinctive talents and strengths and by becoming friends with everyone around me.

Sales is about having a good time and making as many friends as possible. So enjoy what you do. Because when you do, it shows and customers will buy, for a very simple reason:

People Want to Do Business with Their Friends

This is really simple. To make more sales, make more friends. That’s it. Just be likeable. If you do, your customers will buy from you over the next guy. I guarantee that even if you’re more expensive than the next gal or guy, they’ll be happy to pay for your product or service.

If you’re not likeable, then you really shouldn’t be in sales. You need to be in accounting or some other job where it doesn’t really matter if you’re liked. 

Once you’ve established friendship, you’ll establish trust. You’ll be seen as an advisor. As a consultant. And you need to become a consultant to your client. Not a salesperson. Not a rep. Not an account manager. A consultant. And the first step in becoming that trusted advisor, that consultant, is to first to become a friend.

The bottom line is that people do business with people they like and people they trust. The product or service is often secondary.

So talk friendly, not professionally. Listen to people and help them solve problems. If you are a real friend, you might never have to think about the word “selling” again.

For more great advice on starting a business the smart way, be sure to get involved in Trump University’s Entrepreneurship Mastery Program. We have a desk waiting for you.