Think Big

Counting down the lessons that could be learnt... Articles about Donald Trump

Lesson #3: Think Big

“I like thinking big. I always have,” says Trump. “If you’re going to be thinking anyway, you might as well think big.”

Lofty goals with a lofty ego to boot, Trump is not afraid of taking risks. His philosophy of thinking big typifies the strategy behind every single business deal Trump has ever made. From building the Trump International Hotel and Tower in Toronto, which will be the tallest residential tower in Canada when completed, to installing a seven-story waterfall in the lavish marble atrium of the Trump Tower, Trump either does it big or goes home.

Recalling the criticism he got when he first unveiled his waterfall design, Trump says, “Most of my people at first favoured putting paintings on the wall. To me that was old-fashioned, unoriginal, and just not very exciting. As it turned out, the waterfall proved to be an art form in itself, almost a sculptured wall. And it attracts far more attention than we’d have gotten if we’d put up even some very wonderful art.”

Trump considers his ability to think in larger than life terms one of his greatest strengths and a major reason for his significant success. “Most people think small because most people are afraid of success, afraid of making decisions, afraid of winning,” he says. “And that gives people like me a great advantage.” Trump is not afraid to go after what he wants, nor is he afraid of the consequences of his decisions.

Trump has gotten to the top of his game today not by following his competitors and going with the flow, but by daring to do things differently. “Sometimes it pays to be a little wild,” he says. When other developers were lowering their prices during the real estate slump, Trump was raising his. When others were focused on building medium-income housing, Trump was designing million dollar condominiums. And, when others were losing faith in the market’s comeback, Trump saw only possibilities.

Anything that Trump touches seems to take on a mystical aura. This is because Trump sells fantasies and dreams and things that most people don’t dare to imagine. “We took our strengths and promoted them to the skies,” Trump says of Trump Tower. “From day one, we set out to sell Trump Tower not just as a beautiful building in a great location but as an event.” Indeed, Trump’s ‘events’ are beyond what most will ever attend in their lifetime.

But, Trump cautions that thinking big does not necessarily mean seizing every opportunity that comes your way. Often times, rather, less is more. “If you go for a home run on every pitch, you’re also going to strike out a lot,” he says. “I try never to leave myself too exposed, even if it means sometimes settling for a triple, a double, or even, on rare occasions, a single.” Trump has only managed to stay in the game so long by maximizing his options and diversifying his portfolio. From hotels to casinos to books to beauty pageants, Trump has branched out into different areas of business, not only minimizing his risk but also making a name for across a wider audience. By thinking big, Trump has turned himself into one of the biggest names in America.

Play On Perception

Counting down the lessons that could be learnt... Articles about Donald Trump

Lesson #4: Play On Perception

“If you want to sell a car and you spend five dollars to wash and polish it and then apply a little extra elbow grease, suddenly you find you can charge an extra four hundred dollars,” says Trump, “and get it.”

In the fine art of deal making that Trump has mastered, perception is often one of the most important factors that stands in the way of success. As a good salesman, Trump found it crucial to control the perceptions he was giving off to the other side. Aside from his all-important self-grooming in order to look as professional as possible, Trump became an expert in keeping up appearances when it came to his deals.

Trump’s success came from the fact that he was always able to maintain the upper hand in making a deal. While he was often in an inferior position to be making demands, Trump managed to convince property owners that his terms were the only ones worth meeting. “If you want to buy something, it’s obviously in your best interest to convince the seller that what he’s got isn’t worth very much,” he says. By over-selling himself and resorting to tactics of fear and guilt, Trump would always make himself appear as if he were the only man for the job.

Trump had an ability to make people see things the way he wanted them to and knowing this, used it to his advantage in making his multi-million dollar business deals. “When I build something for somebody, I always add $50 million or $60 million onto the price,” he says. “My guys come in, they say it's going to cost $75 million. I say it's going to cost $125 million, and I build it for $100 million. Basically, I did a lousy job. But they think I did a great job.”

When Trump was first starting out in the business, he had little experience building the types of projects he was envisioning and no experience whatsoever in a prime real estate market such as Manhattan. Thus, he encountered a lot of resistance when proposing his plans. But, being a master of persuasion, Trump did not let that stand in his way. In one of his very first negotiations to get the rail yard property along the Hudson River, Trump recalls that when speaking to the owner, “I couldn’t sell him on my experience or my accomplishment, so instead I sold him on my energy and my enthusiasm.”

In a similar situation when Trump was working on transforming The Commodore into the Grand Hotel, he instructed the architect to, “Make it appear that we’d spent a huge sum on the drawings. A good-looking presentation goes a long way.” Trump believed that a presentation that looked as if it were put together by an established firm with a large budget would be more credible than a few sketches done in Trump’s little, dingy apartment.

By making sellers believe that Trump was the best and only person to lead a redevelopment project, he was able to manipulate and manufacture the terms of his own success.

Go with your GUT!

Counting down the lessons that could be learnt... Articles about Donald Trump

Lesson #5: Go With Your Gut

“Experience taught me a few things,” says Trump. “One is to listen to your gut, no matter how good something sounds on paper.”

Trusting his instincts is what has distinguished Trump’s groundbreaking career from his competitors. With his natural ability to spot unique business opportunities, and the knowledge he gained from his father and the Wharton School, Trump had honed his instincts to the point where he had more confidence listening to his gut feelings over anything else when making an important decision.

While Trump is a self-proclaimed disbeliever in marketing surveys and consultants, trusting his instincts never meant making an ill-informed decision. “I’m a great believer in asking everyone for an opinion before I make a decision,” he says. “I ask I ask I ask, until I begin to get a gut feeling about something. And that’s when I make a decision. I have learned much more from conducting my own random surveys than I could ever have learned from the greatest of consulting firms.”

Trusting his instincts is what pushed Trump to enter the dwindling New York real estate market when everybody else was pulling out. And, not only did he enter the market and purchase decrepit properties, but he actually raised prices. His instincts are also to thank for his decision to stay on the sidelines a little longer when prices sometimes seemed too high. “I knew that if I was patient and kept my eyes open, a better opportunity would eventually arise.”

When Trump first started building golf courses, it was his instincts that told him it would be a profitable business venture. He combined his passion for golf along with his business knowledge and his courses have turned out to be huge hits. “The results have been spectacular because I paired both instinct and logic,” he says. Similarly, Trump knew to listen to his instincts when he first met Mark Burnett, the man behind The Apprentice. “Within a few seconds of meeting [him]…I knew he was one hundred percent solid, both as a person and as a professional.” The success of this business partnership has since been extremely rewarding for both, with The Apprentice becoming one of the highest rated reality shows on TV.

But, everybody has instincts and instinct alone is not enough to succeed, says Trump. The ability to recognize and listen to your instincts is equally important and is something that many people are unable to do. Recognizing your instincts requires the courage as well as the opportunity to be able to do so. “Somewhere out there are a few men with more innate talent at golf than Jack Nicklaus, or women with greater ability at tennis than Chris Evert or Martina Navratilova, but they will never lift a club or swing a racket and therefore will never find out how great they could have been,” he says. Instead, they’ll be content to sit and watch stars perform on television.”

In any profession, instincts mean nothing if you are too scared to acknowledge and use them. Trump wasn’t scared and he let his instincts push him all the way to the penthouse.

Re-branding for this blog!

Hi Guys,

To ensure that we duplicate the job done by SMU BIG website and also to fufil our mission of using this blog a a promotional website for the products offered by SMU startups, we are going to do a rebranding for this blog!!!

Here are the suggested names:

1) SMU Bazaar
2) SMU Marketplace
3) SMU Marketspace
4) Ekampung
5) ePasar
6) Souk! (Arab word for "market")

Comment with your vote now!

Steve Jobs Stanford Commencement Speech 2005

Sourcing for Suppliers

On a recent trip to Thailand I managed to source for a few suppliers for interesting knicknacks like wood and paper laterns, handmade soaps, paper mache ornaments, etc.

I know there are plenty of stores like Barang Barang selling Asian handicraft and furniture. But I like this resort home concept stuff and the mark-up on the ones they sell in Singapore is a lot.

I might be able to get something low-cost up and running with my brother who's in New York and sell this stuff to the people there.



I got all the contacts from the various markets we visited. I don't know if the so called suppliers of the goods I found from the markets were the representatives of the actual producers or wholesalers (added middleman cost). But you have to start somewhere I guess.



When the whole SMU BIG thing started there was alot of emphasis on the business idea being the most important concept. Even in all of the business plan competitions I've taken part in, the winners were always the ones with the most inventive idea.



So why bother starting a business that's nothing really new, based in import/export or retail? One of the panelists (who were all established Singaporean entreprenuers ) said at last week's lunchtime forum: "The value of the entreprenuer lies in his/her successful execution, rather than just the idea." If you think about it, most successful Singaporean entreprenuers are successful restuaranters and retailers.



And besides, even if things don't really work out. It's still a good excuse to go on holiday and go shopping.

Photography

Hi i'm Jezreel, if you need to take some stock photos of your products.


I'll be happy to help you!

To see more of my portfolio please visit the website below:
http://zerolimits2006.funkygrad.com/photogallery/index.php

Entrepreneur Network

Leonard, thanks for inviting me to the blog... :)

Hello everyone!

Guess what?! SMU BIG (Business Innovations Generator) will be working in collaboration with TYLER to build the Entrepreneur Network within SMU.

Objectives of the Entrepreneur Network:

• A platform to post promotions and allow contributors to post their thoughts and any information relevant to Entrepreneurship
• Advertising your needs/offerings in a directory listing
• Networking and resource center
• Publicity vehicle to increase visibility and profile of Entrepreneurs/businesses listed.

This blog will be a supplement, if not the bloodline, of the Entrepreneur Network currently found in SMU BIG's website. (Click on the title above to get there) Do email me with your details if you would like to be listed in the directory - smubig@smu.edu.sg

SMU BIG will be promoting this blogspot together with the Entrepreneur Network, as a package, to the entire community and to the public. One step forward in order to do so is to migrate the SMU BIG website from the intranet, where it is currently hosted, to the internet. The current look and feel is also undergoing a significant cosmetic and navigational change to serve everyone better.

We target to have this revamp and move completed within 2 weeks time. Upon which, we are planning for an online publicity to the SMU community and our industry partners to launch this Entrepreneur Network.

We welcome suggestions on how we could better promote this new initiative amidst all the hustle and bustle that's going on in Campus right now... Amongst others, I am also thinking of getting it featured in Vie and/or Blurt as well...

On behalf of SMU BIG, we look forward to helping you build your business...

Contact me if you think we can be of assistance.

See you guys around!

hee hee want to start one of those business that Desai always championed?

Some possible starting points can be through the following :

A listing of NUS developed technologies for licensing
http://www.nus.edu.sg/intro/ind_techonoffer.shtml

A Star technologies
http://www.exploit-tech.com/industries/overview.asp

My sensing is that chances that you can directly license from them as a student is slim. However you maybe able to up the ante if you can win competitions using their technologies and get our professors to validate it and then refer you to them .

Hey Guys!

Heard about the push carts at NLB? Details are avilable at http://www.rp.edu.sg/cie/YE/about/index.asp . Rental is cheap, but a friend who when there to recce told me the traffic was miserable. Hmmm for those interested in such push carts.

Hear about another one orgnized by I weekly behind cineleisure offers a much better public response. Think its on every alternate weeks. Rental quite cheap as well think about $30 a day . =)

Beginnings of a Listing...

Hi everyone,

I was talking with Val Tan of F.M.T. yesterday about how we could pool our resources together as SMU startups and help to promote awareness of our products and services.

I decided to start this blog to act as a listing of SMU student start-ups because we don't seem to currently have a listing.

If you want to join the listing, email me at leonard.lin.2003@sis.smu.edu.sg

Let's work together to bring success to our business!