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S ELL Y OURSELF L IKE T RUMP

raise the questions they would raise, then find the answers to the
questions. There’s always some wrinkle in the transaction, some-
thing that you will need to address so that you can quickly move
on so the other party doesn’t dwell on it. Keep your goal in mind
and think through any potential obstacles and have possible solu-
tions ready.
If you are preparing for a meeting, you need to think about how
you can use the meeting to build rapport, but also focus on what
your objective is. Perhaps you want others to invest; maybe you want
them to accept your capabilities, whatever the case you must prepare
for that meeting: What you’re going to say; what you’re going to do;
and who the audience is; who you’ll be playing to. This way you can
have the maximum effect. If you don’t prepare, you’ll fall flat.
There was a researcher named Ziff who made a study of negotia-
tion. He expanded a concept called Ziff ’s principle of least effort,
which proved that most people will put the least amount of effort in
a transaction that they can in order to proceed. When I read about
the theory, I immediately realized it was true in real estate. Most
people are not willing to put in a lot of time to prepare before mak-
ing big real estate decisions, and you can make this work to your ad-
vantage if you are willing to do what most other people won’t.
Knowing that others want to put in very little effort, successful peo-
ple like Trump take the role of filling the gap and doing all of the ef-
fort that’s required in a transaction. They do it on behalf of the
other people involved in the transaction who don’t want to do it.
Trump always does more preparation than other people are willing to
because it gives him greater control in a fluid situation.
For example, if Trump is creating a plan to attract investors in a
property, knowing what he does about human nature, he’s not going
to expect you to spend a lot of time and effort reading the details.
He’ll do all the mathematics for you in the plan and at the bottom
he’ll write, in big type, “Return on your money: 20% a year.” Most

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