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S ELL Y OURSELF L IKE T RUMP

about your investment idea, if you are articulate and enthusiastic
about the opportunity you are offering others, you are on your way
to developing the requisite rapport with buyers, sellers, lenders, or
other decision makers.

BUILD RELATIONSHIPS WITH
EVERYONE INVOLVED IN A DEAL

The success of any real estate investment or any business deal, for
that matter, is not strictly a matter of dollars-and-cents. A lot of it
comes down to personal relationships—your ability to forge strong
cooperative relationships with all parties, whether they are directly
or even tangentially involved. Trump does this by taking the time
necessary to gain insight into the people he is dealing with—who
they are, what they do, how they do business, who are their family
members or friends, and if appropriate, what their hobbies are. If you
can establish a rapport and a feeling of mutual trust it invariably
makes for an easier negotiation and a faster, more amicable conclu-
sion to any problems that arise. The principle here is, “No one in-
tends to buy a bucket of trust but they will pay for it if it’s delivered.”
Give people reasons to trust you by building a relationship with
them, and you will be laying the foundation for long-term real estate
investing success.
The reason you have to build relationships, especially at the be-
ginning of a real estate transaction, is that people are naturally sus-
picious of others. Until you have built up a level of trust, it is likely
that what you say will be somewhat discounted.
One way to build a good relationship is to assume that the pres-
ent transaction you’re working on is only the beginning of negoti-
ating many deals with your counterparts. Work hard to create the

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