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S ELL Y OURSELF L IKE T RUMP

profitable projects have been those such as 40 Wall Street (to be dis-
cussed later in the book) where he picked up a property for very little
because a string of earlier investors had failed with the property—
and only he had the tenacity and vision to make it work. Everything
that is really successful was the result of hard work that nobody else
wanted to do. The only thing that held the whole Commodore-Hyatt
deal together was Trump’s tenacity—he was like a hungry pit bull.
For example, during early negotiations with New York City over
theCommodore Hotel, one of the city’s key concerns was who would
runthisnew hotel. They said, “You say you’re going to pay us rent,
and that you’re going to give usashareoftheprofits,butwhatdo
you, Donald Trump, know about running a first-class hotel?” And at
first, he didn’t have an answer. But he said, “All right, I’ll go out and
get a major player to run it.” And the city responded with, “Okay, if
you bring in a major hotel operator, we’ll go along with it.” That ten-
tative commitment from the city gave him a strong position from
which to negotiate with a hotel company, and he ended up bringing in
Hyatt as a partner. Once again his tenacity helped him turn a road-
block into anadditional benefit for this investment.
One ofthe biggest roadblocks the small investor will encounter is
themortgage lender. Tenacity can help a lot here. If the first lender
you approach denies you a loan, keep trying with other lenders. Make
inquiries with friends and neighbors about who is making mortgage
loansin your neighborhood. If you look hard enough, you will find a
lender, though you may have to pay a premium for the loan.
Another potential roadblock could be a stubborn seller. Here you
have to find out exactly why he or she does not want to sell, then in a
determined way, answer each issue.
Other possible roadblocks could be denial of a zoning variance or
a building permit. Again, you have to approach the problem tena-
ciously. Find out what the bureaucrats’ specific concerns with your
plans are, then address these issues.

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